Regular occurrences of load shedding continue to cause anguish in people in both urban and rural areas, despite recent assurances from power authorities that the arrival of rain will reduce load shedding.
Although different areas in the country experienced rain over the past two days, people are facing several daily rounds of load shedding, including midnight power outages, as the gap between demand and production continues to exist.
Although the electricity generation capacity has increased to 10,341MW, the Power Development Board (PDB) was still unable to produce to its full capacity because of the incapability of the distribution side, claimed PDB officials.
PDB sources also said inadequate gas supply for generating power is resulting in load shedding across the country.
Compared to a countrywide demand of 7,500MW, power authorities are producing an average of around 6,800MW every day.
Currently, the production of 1,800MW of power is reportedly suspended because of mechanical faults, along with a further suspension of around 900MW of power production because of gas and oil shortages.
“As we are unable to generate additional electricity because of gas shortages, we have to manage the gap with load management, which will be implemented through load shedding,” PDB Chairman Md Abduhu Ruhulla told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Although it has been raining for the last two days, the extreme heat wave continues. So load shedding is not reducing,” he claimed.
Dhaka residents are reportedly experiencing daily load shedding of up to six hours, while the situation is worse outside the capital, where consumers claim to be experiencing nine hours of load shedding every day.
Shahadat Hossain, a resident in Dhaka’s Azimpur, said they are experiencing midnight load shedding. “I have suffered four to six hours load shedding during day and night time. We are still suffering from the problem with a little improvement in the situation,” he claimed.
Md Mofazzal Hoque, a school teacher and resident of the city’s Mohammadpur area, said: “We had experienced load shedding for two to three hours a few days back.”
Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited’s Managing Director Nazrul Hasan admitted limitations of his area’s distributions system, saying some areas suffer outages because of localised bottlenecks in the system.
On the other hand, Md Mahbub Alam, a villager of Paikgacha in Khulna who is also the manager of a private bank, told the Dhaka Tribune that farmers, examinees and children are suffering because of frequent load shedding during the ongoing heat wave.