Tuesday’s national grid failure is believed to have originated in the direction of Ghorashal, Ashuganj and Sirajganj, according to Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) Executive Director and head of the investigation committee Md Yeakub Elahi Chowdhury.
“We are not sure of the exact cause yet, but the Ghorashal, Ashuganj and Sirajganj areas are among the first affected,” he told Dhaka Tribune after visiting the three areas on Wednesday.
“There was overload tripping from these areas. This is very common, but not on such a scale. We will analyse whether the load was released or not. There may be other reasons as well,” he added, stressing that they were still collecting information.
He further said the size of power grid, which has expanded significantly over recent years, was making it more time consuming to pinpoint the exact cause of the nationwide blackout.
“It may take another three or four days to determine the exact cause,” he said.
Earlier yesterday, a 6-member investigation committee led by PGCB Executive Director Yeakub Elahi Chowdhury visited the control room of Ghorashal power plant. PGCB consultant Shamchur Joha, Executive Engineer Arefin Siddique were among those present with the members of the investigation committee.
The team inspected various machinery of the power plant for three hours.
Chief Engineer Zahirul Islam said that due to the power failure in the national grid, power generation at unit number 5 in Ghorashal has stopped. Commissioning of the unit is in progress.
The PGCB initially formed a five-member investigation committee, headed by Yeakub Elahi Chowdhury, representatives from the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), and also from other power sector entities, following the national grid failure.
Later, an experienced individual who had been working as consultant with grid systems locally and internationally was co-opted in the committee.
Official sources said the investigation committee was given three days to complete the probe.
“It might take more time to reach a conclusion as this involves a lot of technical issues of the grid system,” Yeakub told UNB.
Meanwhile, State Minister Nasrul Hamid instructed the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources to form two more investigation committees to identify the cause of the grid failure and also gave recommendations to avert any further disasters in the future.
The two other committees are yet to be formed, said an official of the Power Division.