Financial constraints keep many plants shut; PDB seeks to buy offshore gas from Santos
Although the extra need for power for Boro season irrigation is over, the level of load shedding remains unchanged due to the authorities’ financial inability to operate many idle rental power plants.
A top official of the Power Development Board (PDB) said although the irrigation phase for cultivation of Boro paddy ended on May 1, the demand for electricity remains the same due to hot weather. Irrigation required up to 1,500 megawatts of extra power.
Consequently, power outages that began in March are taking place as before across the country. In the capital, power outages almost every alternate hour continue when the demand for electricity is the highest because of hot weather.
With the mercury shooting up to 38 to 40 degrees Celsius in different areas of the country, people are consuming more power to run fan and air conditioners. But due to load shedding which is taking place six to 10 times a day at places, these cannot be used as required.
“I wake up every night around 3 to 4 am, sweating in my bed,” said Mohammad Kamal of Green Road in the capital. “I always thought since the demand for power is quite low at night, its supply would be normal. But in our area, power supply goes off every alternate hour,” he added.
A resident of Uttara, Rumman, said, “We bought an air conditioner last week. We managed to run it for a while. But most of the time, it serves only as a showpiece while we sweat.”
From old Dhaka to Gulshan, the situation is almost the same. Those who turned to using generators or IPS can, however, run their fans during the hot and humid hours, but those who entirely depend on the national grid for power supply are in a miserable condition.
The load shedding of power has also affected water supply as the Wasa cannot operate its water pumps non-stop to ensure in many areas of the capital. Wasa sources said around half of the water pumps cannot be normally due to the load shedding.
The PDB says if it had enough funds, it could have operated all the rental power plants and bring down the level of load shedding to a tolerable level.
Many rental plants that sell power to the PDB at a high price is sitting idle since it cannot provide them with liquid fuel — diesel and heavy fuel oil.
As a result, the PDB says, it is supplying around 5,200 MW power against the demand for 6,700 MW across the country.
The PDB mentioned that it could have supplied 6,000 MW power now if it had enough funds to provide the required liquid fuel, the price of which more than doubled in the last two years when it (PDB) had planned and forecast how it would handle the summer requirement of power in 2012.
“We ran out of the Tk 5,200-crore subsidy several months back. The government is raising power tariff to cover our deficit, but the move should have been initiated much earlier so that we did not have to depend much on the subsidy,” said a top PDB official.
“Two years ago, when we started implementing a large number of fuel- based rental power projects, the price of heavy fuel oil (HFO) was just Tk 26 a litre. Now, its price has gone up to Tk 60 a litre. Had the price remained low, we would not have faced the power crisis,” he said.
Had the fuel price remained Tk 26 a litre, the PDB would have required Tk 4,000 crore in subsidy. Prior to the last fiscal year’s budget, the fuel price rose to Tk 40 a litre, forcing the PDB to seek Tk 9,000-crore subsidy. Of this, the government gave Tk 5,200 crore with the remaining to be collected by raising power tariff.
But now, with the HFO price rising sharply, the PDB has estimated it would need Tk 1,2000 crore in subsidy in the next fiscal year.
PDB sources said due to the fund crunch, they have stopped fuel supply to several rental plants. They (PDB) are paying these idle plants a “capacity charge” for not buying power from them. Capacity charge is roughly one fifth of the power tariff for each of these plants.
The easiest way to increase power generation would have been an increase of gas supply to power plants. Power from natural gas-fired plant is the cheapest power in the country. But due to persistent gas crisis for many years now, close to a 1,000 MW power cannot be generated.
In the last three years, the Petrobangla failed to significantly increase gas supply.
Meanwhile, the PDB is striking a deal with Australian company Santos to buy gas from a new small gas field close to the offshore Sangu field. Santos would supply only 20 million cubic feet a day (mmcfd) gas to the PDB at a rate of $4.5 per mmcfd once the higher authorities approve the purchase proposal.
“This gas will help us run partially one of the two 210MW Raozan power plant units. Santos will be able to supply it just for two years. We are hoping that during this period, the company will make similar discoveries,” a PDB high official said.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
