Power outage turns severe

DST fails to improve supply situation
Power outage turned severe across the country on Sunday and the daylight saving time introduced midnight past Friday failed to create any positive impact on the power supply situation.
Most city areas faced outages for six to eight hours on the day, for one to two hours at a time, even during evening hours although clock in Bangladesh was advanced by an hour to have more daylight and save on power during evening hours.
City power officials hoped it would take a few days for people to adjust to the new time and to find out whether the daylight saving time would have any impact on the power consumption pattern.
Other parts of the country faced around 12 to 18 hours of outage as usual and Rural Electrification Board officials were sceptical about whether the DST could bring about any change in power outages in rural areas.
Residents of most city areas such as Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Jigatala, Rajabazar, Tejgaon, Moghbazar, Khilgaon, Badda, Basabo and Old Town said they had faced outage at least for four hours till 8:00pm and of three more hours after the sunset.
‘We faced power outages repeatedly in two days, even in the middle of the night. I do not understand what difference the DST has made?’ said Shamsul Haque, a resident of Agargaon Taltala in Dhaka, Sunday night.
Nafis, a Dhaka University student and resident of Rajabazar, said they faced eight hours of power outage on Sunday, two hours at a stretch sometimes.
The government introduced the daylight saving time to save 200MW of electricity by reducing peak electricity consumption hours by an hour. Power agencies consider the peak hours to be from 6:00pm to 11:00pm.
‘As the sun sets at 8:00pm, instead of the previous 7:00pm, the evening peak hours will get an extra hour of daylight, reducing consumption of electricity especially by shops and houses. People will get an additional hour for shopping after office time,’ explained a power official earlier.
In many areas, big shops which fell under the purview of the 8:00pm ban, however, defied the ban by running their business till 8:30pm to 9:00pm to adjust their businesses to the previous timing.
Many shops that are out of the evening ban purview in lanes and by-lanes continued with their business till 12:30am in keeping with the previous time.
The Supreme Court, government and non-government schools and a large number of private institutions, companies and industries changed their timing after the daylight saving time had been introduced.
Dhaka Power Distribution Company and Dhaka Electric Supply Company officials said the people might take a few days to adjust their routine to the new time.
They said special drives would be conducted against the shops which would remain open after 8:00pm.
Many power officials, however, believe the DST would bring about little impact because of the massive gap between the demand for power and the supply. ‘The gap between the demand and supply is 2,000MW whereas authorities are hoping to save 200MW. There will not be much visible impact of the daylight saving because of the huge gap,’ observed an official.
It is still a projection that 200MW of electricity could be saved and no one knows how much electricity could be saved and how people would change their routines.
The DPDC managing director, Ataul Masud, said 64 of their teams would conduct drives against errant shops from Sunday. ‘We will submit a report to the government in a week on how much electricity was saved after the introduction of the DST,’ he said.
The DESCO managing director, Saleh Ahmed, said he believed power outages could be reduced by an hour as some electricity would be saved once the shops closed their business in keeping with the rules.
The prime minister’s adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury told New Age on Sunday they would again request all to not to adjust their routine to the previous time.
‘We will ensure that public institution do not change their timing. As for Supreme Court and private companies, we cannot control them as they are independent bodies,’ he said.
Tawfiq said once the ongoing extreme heat which pushed up the demand for electricity would go away, the impact of the daylight saving time would be visible.

Courtesy of NewAgebd