Power load-sheddingWorst crisis in a decade

Bangladesh is witnessing the worst-ever power load-shedding in a decade, as generation up to the level required could not be brought online since the blackout on October 4 last.

Until Sunday, the power outages were stretching up to eight hours a day at different parts of the country, including the franchise areas of Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC), sources said.

They said the overall generation and supply of electricity is yet to get back to normal since the day of major power disruption due to several reasons, including gas shortage, high prices of imported fuel oil and the still-faulty transmission grid that cannot transmit electricity from the Western zone to the Eastern.

Around half of the total power generating capacity remained idle as the operators -- both public and private -- cannot afford to run the plants by importing fossil fuels that are highly priced in the international market at present.

According to the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), the country's total generation during the day-peak hours was around 9,750 MW and evening-peak hours around 12,318 MW against the capacity of 21,710 MW as on October 22.

The country's lone transmission system still remains faulty after the blackout as it cannot transfer electricity from the Western zone to the Eastern, state minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told media recently.

One of the several probe bodies found negligence of some officials of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh Ltd, or PGCB, as the main reason behind the blackout.

The government last week formed four new probe committees in this regard to identify the faults of the state-run power distribution companies. The committees are yet to submit their reports, said officials.

The blackout was not for technical faults, but human errors, said Mr Hamid.

To add woes, many private oil-fired plants are not being able to generate electricity as they lack necessary furnace oil and money to import fuel oils to run the plants, president of Bangladesh Independent Power Producers Association, or BIPPA, Imran Karim said.

Currently, the BPDB owes around Tk160 billion (around US$1.60 billion) to the private power-plant owners, he said. "We are importing fuel as much as we can," he added.

The state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), however, increased the import of diesel for power generation at the request of BPDB as the private sector squeezed HSFO imports due to fund crunch.

"We have increased gasoil imports by around 100,000 tonnes each over the past three months to generate electricity in gas oil-fired power plants," said a senior BPC official.

The BPDB took around 40,000 tonnes to 50,000 tonnes of diesel every month during the months of August, September and October last year, but this year it sought a quantity that ranged between 140,000 tonnes and 150,000 tonnes, he said.

Bangladesh has ceased importing LNG from the spot market since July 2022 and is now importing the lowest quantity of LNG from its two existing long-term suppliers - Qatargas and Oman Trading International - in a move to reduce energy imports to save foreign currency.

Currently, a total of 24 natural gas-fired power plants, with a capacity of around 3,300 MW, are totally shut and a few more are running with limited capacity as state-run Petrobangla is able to supply less than half of the country's total gas requirement.

Petrobangla also has squeezed natural gas supplies to power plants to the tune of only 945 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) against the demand of around 2,250 mmcfd, according to its data as on October 22, 2022.

Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves last week declined further to around $35.98 billion last week due to the soaring energy import costs, stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war, according to data from the central bank.

To reduce imports, the country has initiated a set of austerity measures and put restrictions on imports of non-essential and luxury items.