Shamim Jahangir
Load shedding of electricity has been disrupting normal activities of the people and affecting production in mills and factories across the country for the last several days. In some areas of the country the power outage continues for four to five hours at a stretch.
The situation on the power front will assume a grave proportion during the coming summer season if immediate steps are not taken to ensure adequate supply of gas to power plants for generating electricity.
“Seven of the major PDB power units are generating less electricity because of gas shortage. Besides, operation of four other big units has come to a grinding halt for the same reason,” sources in the power division said.
At present, the peak demand of electricity exceeds 4300 MW on an average against the generation from 2900 MW to 3200 MW leaving an unmet demand of 1100 MW to 1400 MW daily due to gas shortage.
“We have produced 3,240 MW of power against the demand of 4,150MW in the peak hour yesterday,” PDB sources said.
The new government is yet to any concrete step yet in power sector to tackle the power crisis in the upcoming summer season, according to the sources.
The plants across the country need at least 750 million cubic feet of gas to keep outage within a tolerable limit. The demand for gas for power
plants is nearly 850mmcfd. But, the division is getting 630 mmcfd of gas against the demand to run its power plants smoothly, the sources added.
Petrobangla now supplies about 1780mmcfd of gas of which fertiliser plants receive 223mmcfd, industries, dwelling houses and CNG filling stations 883mmcfd and power plants about 630mmcfd.
An inter-ministerial meeting held yesterday at the secretariat to discuss measures to tackle the power crisis in the summer season. Adviser to the Prime Minister Shiekh Hasina for Power and Energy Dr Towfiq-E-Elahi and State Minister for Power and Energy Shamsul Alam were present in the meeting.
The minister asked the Petrobangla management to find out ways to provide additional 50mmcfd of gas to power plants before summer season.
Courtesy: nation.ittefaq.com
