1000 MW of electricity add to the national grid by the end of this month : Dr Tawfiq e Elahi Chowdhury

Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chow-dhury said yester-day that govern-ment would add 1000 MW of electricity to the national grid by the end of this month.

“It would be possible to add this amount of electricity as 6 to 8 rental power plants are set to supply power by this time,” he said.

After a visit to 100 MW Desh Energy’s power plant at Shiddhirganj and 102 MW Summit Power Company’s plant at Madanganj, Tawfiq said government would be in a position to cope with the demand-supply situation in the power sector within next year.

He chaired a preparatory meeting with the officials and entrepreneurs for inaugurating these two power plants on March 20. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to formally inaugurate the plants.

Power Division Secretary Mohammad Abul Kalam Azad, Chairman of Summit Group Aziz Khan, Chairman of Desh Energy Anisul Haque and other officials were present.

“The government inherited the power problems and it is trying to solve the crisis with the help of the private and foreign investors,’ the adviser said.

Both these power plants have been set up under government’s immediate action plan known as ‘quick rental power project.’

Desh Energy, a local company installed the diesel-fired power plant last month and started producing electricity on “test run Basis”. Summit Power started test run at its furnace oil based plant from Tuesday.

Power Development Board (PDB) signed the contract with Desh Energy about eight months back. Per unit (Kilowatt) cost of electricity from this plant would be TK 16 plus.

Summit Power Co completed this project within the schedule. However, the cost of per unit electricity from this plant is Tk 7 plus.The PDB produces around 3900 MW electricity against the demand of around 5200 MW.

News Source:  The Daily Sun

Power cuts begin as summer closes in

Power outage started taking place, straining people’s life at just before the advent of summer.

According to Power Development Board statistics, the gap estimated between power generation and the supply is now 1,250MW but direct contacts by New Age with power distribution agencies suggest that it already exceeded 2,000MW.

The power distribution agencies have been forced to shed loads for five to six hours in the capital and for 10 to 12 hours in rural areas as the difference between the demand and supply of power has started increasing rapidly from early March.

Power outages taking place in early March have raised some concerns about the commitment of the government to improve the power situation by 2011.

Waliur Rahman, a pharmaceutical businessman and resident of Mirpur, told New Age that he understood that the power situation could not be improved overnight.

‘But there is no evidence on the ground that can assure us that the power situation is going to improve by the end of this year,’ he added.

He feared that power outage would increase in the forthcoming months as the temperature increases.

According to the power board statistics, the average power generation in for a few days has been 3,800MW, with 580MW coming from quick rental plants.

A further 1,620MW of power from rental plants is due to come on stream this coming year.

A power board official told New Age on Wednesday that the addition of the rental power to the national grid could not improve the power scenario as old power plants of a combined capacity of 1,854MW were not producing power for lack of gas and technical problems.

BD Rahmatullah, a former director general of the power cell, told New Age that the 700MW of power could be obtained if the government renovated old power plants.

A Rural Electrification Board official told New Age that the situation had deteriorated in three days. ‘We cannot provide power for at least three hours for irrigation in REB’s coverage areas for lack of power allocation,’ he added.

On several occasions, the government announced to supply uninterrupted power from 11:00pm to 7:00am for irrigation and decided to switch 200MW–250MW of power from the capital to villages.

The Dhaka Power Distribution Company and the Dhaka Electric Supply Company started publishing power outage schedules on their web sites for different areas of the capital.

The DESCO managing director, Manjur Ahmed, told New Age that the power demand was increasing as the temperature started increasing rapidly in early March.

The DPDC gets around 660MW of power to meet a demand for 840MW from evening until the following morning.

Power demand in the DESCO area has now touched 500MW with a shortfall of 150MW.

News Source:  The New Age

ELECTRICITY : A WARNING SIGN!

A couple of days ago I was having this online conversation with one of my friends in USA and he told me 'Does it really take 37 years to solve the problem of power crisis?' All I could tell him that due to inefficient governance we always lagged behind. We never had someone who could aggressively worked for the betterment of the country. Today, even after 37 years of independence, when we look at our nation all we can see is that, all kinds of infrastructure are falling apart.

We have now severe problems with water, security, gas and electricity. Many experts once said that Bangladesh is floating on gas. And now the country is so much in shortage of gas that it is thinking of importing. Above all these problems, power crisis is the major one which has made the people suffer since beginning of the country's birth.

It is being predicted that there will be even more power shortages in near future because there is shortage of gas and coal to generate electricity and it is too much difficult for a developing country like us to import diesel at high prices to generate power.

There is a shortfall of producing around 500 Megawatt of electricity Due to shortage of gas. It is heard from the experts that due to shortage of gas the planning for building 17 more power plants within the next four years may come to a halt.

Even in this rainy season, except in the diplomatic areas, electricity go out frequently almost everywhere. According to Power Development Board (PDB), the country needs around 5000 Megawatt of electricity in pick hour. But PDB says that in pick hours around 3,300 to 3,400 Megawatts of electricity are being produced now.

Has any of our Government taken any stern steps to reduce power failure? Due to lack of gas supply there is a daily shortfall of producing 500 Megawatt of electricity.

Government must look for alternative solutions to this long term problem. They must look for alternatives to gas so that electricity problem is solved once and for all.