Photo: Collected
The country’s people are back to the lantern era in the backdrop of the ongoing energy crisis which has caused country-wide unbearable loadshedding making people suffer immensely.
There is no immediate solution to the problem as two major coal-based power plants are out of production and the government cannot import coal due to the dollar crisis.
Experts attribute the waning crisis over the excessive dependence on imported fuel for running the power plants combined with government’s adamant attitude to explore gas from domestic sources.
Shirin Akter, a house wife from Keraniganj told The Daily Messenger, “We are facing 6 to 8 hours loadshedding a day. At night we burn candle or lantern. Sometimes, we use charger light.”
Monowara Begum from Rupganj said, “We are facing frequent power cut in a day. We cannot charge IPS, or charger light properly. So, during load shedding, we use lantern.”
According to Power Development Board, on Friday (2 June) loadshedding was 800MW while generation was more than 15,000MW in a situation when 75 power plants are out of production.
“Due to dollar crisis, we cannot import LNG and coal adequately that’s why we are supplying power rationally. I am requesting all for keeping patient to combat the crisis,” Nasrul Hamid, State Minister for Power and Energy ministry told The Daily Messenger. “Currently, we have increased supply of electricity to irrigation shifting from Dhaka.”
Generally, the government supplies power smoothly to the capital city Dhaka utilizing entire effort. But other urban areas of the country face load shedding in regular interval for years.
Due to coal crisis, the government’s mega projects Rampal and Payra cannot generate power constantly. Sometimes, these bigger plants stop generation.
“In fact, the country is facing worse dollar crisis that’s why we cannot even import coal and LNG even during when price go down in the international market. Mainly, dependency of imported fuel has made the crisis more serious,” said country’s prominent energy expert Prof Ijaz Hossain.
However, the Rampal thermal power plant with 1,200MW capacity, has been shut down three times in the last four months due to the coal crisis.
The plant requires 5,000 tons of coal daily for regular production. But due to the coal crisis, the power generation of the plant has been stopped since the night of April 23.
According to Power Division, this thermal power plant has been shut down three times in the last four months. As a result, the plant could not supply electricity to the national grid. As the LC could not be opened due to dollar crisis, production was stopped.
The country's largest 1,320 MW Payra thermal power plant is apprehended to stopping power generation due to the coal crisis.
People close to the power plant said that due to the dollar crisis, the plant has accumulated arrears of about Tk 3,200 crore in the last nine months. This has suspended the coal import too.
The power plant was shut down from yesterday. If coal cannot be imported, both units of the power plant will be shut down for long.
Eminent energy expert and the advisor of Consumer Association Prof Shamsul Alam said, “Government’s desperate attempt based on imported fuel has created such kind of uncertainty. We would go slow in power generation. The government has stopped exploring domestic gas which may keep safe the fuel crisis of the county.”
The government had taken the mega projects to meet the power demand of the 100 economic zones. Gradually the EZs are getting ready for the industrialization but a major portion of the power generation capacity cannot generate power due to fuel scarcity.
However, the highest generation of the country is 15,000MW against the capacity of 24,000MW while 38 percent of the capacity is sitting idle.
As per vision 2041, the government is working towards to enhance power generation capacity to 40,000 MW by 2030 and 60,000 MW by 2041 as per Power System Master Plan (PSMP).
