The 80s and 90s people are currently experiencing nostalgia. Back in the day, load-shedding was a common phenomenon – it was a part of daily activities. You were watching an exciting cricket match between India and Pakistan on television, 10 runs are needed in 6 balls, with 2 wickets left. Boom! The electricity went off! 90 minutes and extra 30 minutes could not determine the winner between Brazil and Italy in the FIFA world cup final, so the game moved toward a penalty shootout and then? What else? Load-shedding! You were in the middle of your favorite TV program and electricity said goodbye! You were returning home on a deserted road late at night, and suddenly the street lights went off due to load-shedding. And all of a sudden, you got robbed! This scenario continued till 2008/09 when the average load-shedding reached 800 to 1,000 megawatts per day.
Starting from 2008, the power generation capacity of the country has increased from only 4,200 to 26,000 megawatts to date. Lots of mega power plant projects with different fuel types have been undertaken to improve the power generation capacity. This includes the Ruppur Nuclear Power Plant, Matarbari Coal Power Plant, Payra Coal Power Plant, and Rampal Coal Power Plant which will have generating capacities of 2,400, 1,200, 1,320, and 1,320 megawatts respectively after coming into production. In addition, the government has taken various initiatives including setting up contractual private power plants and importing electricity from neighboring countries. As a result of these multifaceted initiatives, the power generation capacity of the country has increased tremendously.
To promote the government’s success in the power sector, ‘100 Percent Electrification’ was celebrated across the country on 21st March this year. But, just three months into the celebrations, ‘Planned Load-Shedding’ began across the country. Although called ‘Planned’, the timing and extent of load-shedding are not seen as planned at all. In some places, people are experiencing more than 10 hours of load-shedding every day. So, what is happening actually? What is going wrong?
Currently, the government is trying to establish the continued oil price rising due to the Ukraine-Russia war as the main cause of the ongoing load-shedding problem. Yes, it may be one of the major reasons, but it’s not the only one. As the problem was waiting to be unfolded anyway, the Ukraine-Russia war only accelerated the process.
Generally, the power sector of a country is divided into three sub-sectors – Generation, Transmission, and Distribution. At present, the maximum electricity demand across the country is near about 15,000 megawatts and the generation capacity is near about 26,000 megawatts. So, it is clear that the production capacity is almost double compared to the demand. In general, load-shedding occurs when production falls short of demand. But, in this case, load-shedding is taking place despite having almost twice the production capacity compared to the demand. So where is the remaining electricity going?
Yes, there are indeed a lot of power plants, including private and government-owned plants installed across the country, but these power plants are not evenly and properly distributed or located. Electricity from all the power plants cannot be connected to the national grid simultaneously due to a shortage of transmission lines. Therefore, most of these power plants sit idle. And even though the generation and transmission lines are in place, it is not possible to supply electricity as per the demand in many parts of the country due to a lack of distribution lines or poor distribution lines. Hence it appears that power plants have been either unplanned or allowed to be set up without the necessary infrastructural development of the transmission and distribution lines. Thus, being white elephants, these plants are helping a small number of self-interested groups of people only to increase their fortunes. How is it helping their fortune? Well, the answer lies in the terms and conditions of the contracts between the Government and the owner of these Power Plants.
According to the terms and conditions of these infamous contracts, the government is obliged to pay capacity charges to the plant owners whether the plant is running or not. The government has this agreement with all the private, rent-based peaking power plants, currently operating and installed in Bangladesh. And taking full advantage of the terms and conditions of this treaty, some influential groups are receiving approvals from the government to set up power plants anywhere they want, even without scrutinizing the possibility, feasibility and necessity.
If we examine the locations of these power plants, we can clearly understand that most of the power plants are located in places like Chittagong, Barisal, Dhaka, and Narayanganj where transportation of fuel is relatively easier or the cost is low. We do not see many of these power plants in the northern part of the country, where it is needed more. Certain regions have so many power plants that many of them often sit idle for months. So, year after year, the government has to pay the capacity charges of these power plants, which also impacts the electricity price at the consumer level. It has been calculated that a 35 thousand crore taka subsidy will be required in the electricity sector in the current financial year, which is about 5 percent of the total national budget.
All the contractual power plants mainly run on diesel or heavy furnace oil. Because of the fuel oil price increase in the world market as a result of the war, the massive depreciation of the Bangladeshi Taka against the US dollar, and the consequent reduction in the central reserve money, the import of oil is facing a standstill. Therefore, at present, all these plants are unable to function properly, which is causing ongoing load-shedding.
The growth of renewable energy has been very slow over the years. Even though the government developed a strategy to produce 20 percent of its energies from renewable sources by the year 2020, only 3 percent could be achieved by then. Until now, the growth has not been promising at all. Our largest renewable energy power plant is the Kaptai Hydro Power Plant which was constructed before the liberation (1956-1962). As of now, this plant contributes to 39 percent of the total on-grid and 24 percent of the total renewable energy in Bangladesh. This clearly states how slow the growth of renewable energy has been.
Although the government had a mission to transform the country into a digital Bangladesh, it has not been possible to fully modernize and digitize the power generation, transmission, and distribution system yet. Lots of operations are still done manually. Human error during these manual operations disrupts the power supply system and sometimes causes major disasters like grid failure and blackouts.
Although people have almost forgotten the taste of load-shedding, the current Ukraine-Russia war has made the fragility of the country’s electricity situation visible. Our primary energy sector (oil-LNG-coal) has been moving towards import-dependency directions. On the verge of our gas reserve depletion, effective steps have not been taken for the exploration of the new reservoirs, even after the great victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) on the settlement of the Bay of Bengal border with India in 2014.
For those of us, who were children or teenagers in the early nineties, load-shedding was like a festival – an excuse to skip studies and hang out with friends. Though it is hard to skip studies even with load-shedding these days due to the easy availability of charger lights and fans, some things never get old!
Thanks to the systematic system loss!
Payel is a mechanical engineer and researcher
