Electricity production in the country reached a record high of 15,304MW on April 13. But still, due to the prevailing heatwave, demand for electricity has risen sharply and customers are unwilling to accept even a minor power outage in this intense heat. And this despite the fact that electricity supply in Dhaka and big cities is much better than in rural areas.
During peak demand, electricity is generated from 14,500-15,000MW. Due to the heat this year, more electricity has to be produced than in other years.
On the other hand, electricity production cannot be increased significantly due to the ongoing energy crisis. As a result, the authorities are under pressure to meet rising demand.
A maximum of 1,150 million cubic feet of gas is being supplied to the power plants. However, some fuel shortages have put the furnace oil-fired plants in trouble. Otherwise, it would have been possible to generate more electricity this year.
Sources say Petrobangla is not getting the increased amount of gas supply it was promised this year. As a result, this is considered to be one of the key reasons why production is less than demand when over 40% of the power plants are run by gas.
In the last few days, Dhaka has recorded over 40 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature in its history. On the other hand, Chuadanga and several districts of the Khulna division have been experiencing the highest temperature in the country for the last two weeks.
File photo of Loadshedding Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka TribuneLoadshedding is reported every day in Dhaka and elsewhere, both during the day and at night. Hour-long outages have also been reported in various areas, especially after 1am. The situation worsened during the daytime on Monday.
On Sunday, the production target was 13,948MW. However, on the previous day net production was 14,978MW. Still, 950MW loadshedding had to be done across the country, with Mymensingh experiencing the maximum.
Asad Jobair from Keraniganj said citizens have been facing recurrent loadshedding every day since Friday. “After an hour, electricity comes for 10 minutes,” he added.
Lily Akhter from Banashree and Abbas from Mohammadpur said they experienced loadshedding several times a day.
“The rise in temperature and the loadshedding made the situation worse for us,” Abbas said.
Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) Managing Director Bikash Dewan claimed that DPDC was not doing any loadshedding. “The problem in some sub-stations is behind the power outage in some places. It cannot be called loadshedding. Today we are providing a maximum of 1,800MW electricity in our area.”
The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) says there was loadshedding of only 60MW in the districts under Dhaka division. The total demand in the division is 5,220MW.
The situation is worse in areas outside Dhaka, with the Rural Electrification Board (REB) doing loadshedding of more than 2,000MW.