Bangladesh has now transformed from a power-shortage country into a power-surplus one.
The government is now facing five main challenges including ensuring stable supply of fuel, uninterrupted electricity, power generated at affordable price, constructing power plants while protecting the environment and ensuring proper use of generated electricity, a power division official said.
Energy expert Professor M. Shamsul Alam told Bangladesh Post ‘the big challenge is to supply uninterrupted electricity at specific voltages and frequencies. Otherwise, the use of electricity will not increase in industry. As a result, the amount of subsidy in the power sector and electricity price will increase continuously.
Secondly, the cost of grid power supply will increase in some places where demand is low. To meet this cost, there would be the need to supply electricity generated through renewable energy. But it was not implemented.’
“Besides, there are various unreasonable expenditures in the power sector which need to be controlled. Therefore, good governance must be established in this sector. Then consumers will get electricity at a fair price. Although the power generation capacity of electricity has increased, there is doubt as to whether it will be able to sustain the supply of fuel. Oil-based power plants have increased in the country as had not been able to do so before, which is unprecedented in the world,” he added.
Currently 99 percent of the people have come under electricity facility. The power situation has improved in big cities including Dhaka but load shedding is happening in District, Upazila and village areas due to limitation of transmission and distribution system.
Engineer Mohammad Hossain, director general of the Power Cell, told Bangladesh Post “the government has achieved tremendous success in the power sector. We wanted a surplus in electricity generation and we succeeded. Now incidents like load shedding occur occasionally due to problems in transmission and distribution systems. So we are now focusing on improving the power distribution and transmission system.”
According to the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), the average power generation cost in January 2009 was Tk 2.61 per unit, which is now around taka 6.5. This is because around 30 percent of the total electricity generated is fuels. Although the cost of generating electricity from gas is Tk 2.80, due to lack of gas, 1500 to 2000 MW gas-fired power plants are closed throughout the year.
To overcome this situation, the government took initiative to set up large coal-fired and nuclear power plants. Already the country’s first mega power plant having capacity 1320MW (Coal fired) is now generating at Payra in Patuakhali district. More power plants are now under construction in Rampal, Payra, Rooppur and Matarbari.
The government is now focusing on coal and LNG based power plants. On the other hand, the dependency on fuel for power generation will decrease in phases. Once implemented, the generation cost will be reduced. However, the implementation of this plan is a big challenge.
Bhutan, Nepal and India plan to generate huge amounts of hydro-power by building dams on mountain rivers. If Bangladesh can import this electricity from Nepal, the price will be lower. A memorandum of understanding was signed between Bangladesh and Nepal on August 10, 2018. But there is no visible progress till now.
Another way to get affordable electricity is to focus on oil and gas exploration and extraction at sea. If oil and gas are found in the sea, the cost of power generation will be reduced. Not much progress has been made in this regard in the last 11 years.
Oil and gas are not being explored on a large scale even on land or offshore. Due to bureaucratic complications, the state-owned Bapex is failing to play its role.
Experts say that if stable supply of fuel is ensured, it will be possible to generate electricity at affordable prices. There are five coal mines in the country, but coal could not be extracted due to controversy over the method of extraction. As a result, coal is being imported at high prices for coal-based plants. Despite the possibility of getting oil and gas at sea, there has been virtually no progress in the last 11 years except leasing some blocks to a few foreign companies. If gas could be found in the sea, it could become the main fuel for power generation by protecting the environment at a lower cost.
Environmentalists have objections to coal-fired power plants and nuclear power plants. Their claim is that coal is harmful to the environment and nuclear power plants are a threat to mankind. But the government has denied the allegations. It says all power plants will be set up ensuring proper security using the latest technology. However, the power division has decided not to build any new coal-fired power plants.
Experts say there is a huge potential to generate electricity from environmentally friendly renewable energy, especially solar and wind, without harming the environment. The cost of solar power generation is also declining. Though the government has taken various initiatives about renewable energy, it is not expanding. The government planned to generate at least 10 percent (at least 2,000 MW) of electricity from renewable energy by 2020. But so far only 3 percent of electricity is being generated from renewable energy.
A large part of the amount of electricity currently generated in the country is not used at night and in winter. There are around 33 percent of industrial and 53 percent domestic consumers. Besides some 3 percent electricity is used in agriculture and 9 percent in commercial (hotels, shops and other commercial establishments, which are mostly closed after 8 pm) sector. As a result, the use of electricity is reducing after 10 pm.
In summer, the electricity demand reached around 13,000 megawatts. In winter, the demand for electricity comes down to 8,000-9,000 MW.
According to BPDB, the actual peak demand in the day was 7901 MW and in the evening, 9074 MW last Tuesday.
However, currently the installed capacity is 21239 MW and its generation capacity is 20,748 MW of grid connected electricity. Of this, the highest generation was 12,892 MW on September, 05, 2020, meaning, the country has the capacity to supply 9,000 MW more than the demand.
Experts say multidimensional use of electricity needs to be increased along with generation. Like increasing the use of electric trains, buses, cars. As well as setting up new factories.
Despite a huge surplus of electricity in the national grid, the entrepreneurs choose to rely on the electricity either generated by themselves or captive power to run their industries. They attribute their dependence on captive power to limitation of transmission and distribution system.
Energy expert professor Dr. Izaj Hossain told Bangladesh Post “Currently, there are 3,000-megawatt captive power plants in various factories. If the transmission system improves, the government can sell this 3,000-megawatt power to them and they both win.”
Md. Nurul Alam, Additional Secretary (planning) of Power Division told Bangladesh Post ‘We assure all industrialists that we have surplus electricity as well as efficient and reliable power. However, there is some limitation in the distribution system. We are working. Hopefully, we can overcome it within a couple of years.’
The Power Division official said the government is also thinking of giving special incentives to industry for use of electricity in winter and off-peak hours. Besides, it is being explored whether electricity can be exported to India, Bhutan and Nepal in winter. The government is also considering exporting electricity to India during off-peak hours. To that end, the government has changed the power act and added export provisions to it.
