The government says it is preparing an investigation report on the failure of the national power grid that plunged the country into darkness on Saturday.
“I have requested the public to be patient for the next three working days to know the actual facts of the incident,” State Minister for Power Nasrul Hamid told journalists yesterday at a press conference at Bidyut Bhaban in the city.
But a Power Development Board (PDB) official said he had doubts about how useful the investigation committee report would be since its members are all government officials and no outside experts have been invited. “I think the investigation needs input from outside experts as well,” he said.
“We will not take any experts from outside as our time is limited,” Power Division Secretary Monowar Islam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
An investigation into the national grid failure in 2007 following cyclone Sidr recommended that substations that went offline power up only after receiving permission from central authorities, otherwise the grid could collapse.
But the recommendations of that report were not put into effect, a member of that committee said, requesting anonymity.
Monowar said an eight-member inquiry committee led by an additional secretary of the Power Division was working to detail the specific reasons for the power grid failure. It is also expected to make recommendations of its own.
“The prime minister is monitoring the situation and giving directives on it,” the state minster said.
“We are grateful to the Almighty that none of our electricity plants were affected. We have successfully managed to get the electricity supply back to normal,” he added.
The state minister stressed the need to maintain an alternative power supply and back-up support arrangements at all critically important installations like airports and hospitals.
Responding to reports that the grid failed following a technical fault on the Indian side of the India-Bangladesh transmission line, Nasrul Hamid said everyone must await the findings of the committee.
The national grid collapsed twice on Saturday cutting power to the entire country for several hours.
The power supply was restored partially across the country at 2:50pm after the first grid failure at 11:28am. But the national grid collapsed again at 4:30pm.
Power was restored in the capital and elsewhere in the country around midnight.
“All the power plants in the country collapsed one after another because the relay system in the power network did not work during the national grid failure,” Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, PM’s energy adviser, said.
Power Division Secretary Monowar said there was a technical glitch in the country’s western grid around 11:30am on Saturday that resulted in the national grid shutting down.
“The media’s objective reporting helped the power department to focus on restoring power across the country,” he said.
“There are flaws in the set-up of the Bheramara power sub-station, so when it tripped yesterday, the entire national electricity grid collapsed,” he said.