Power outage is back amid heatwave

The power outage has returned across the country amid a severe heatwave, hurting daily domestic users, industrial output and irrigation work despite a record power generation by the public and private power producers.

On Saturday, the country faced a load-shedding of 2,500 megawatts (MW) in the daytime, while the power shortage at the peak time of night was 950 MW, according to Bangladesh Power Grid Company and  Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB)'s daily data.

After making a record of generation over 15,300 MW, the country's overall power generation again declined to below 15,000 MW on Saturday due to the sudden shutdown of the 660 MW first unit of the Rampal Bangladesh-India Maitree power plant.

Meanwhile, the total power supply across the country on Saturday was 13,969 MW against a demand of 15,500 MW. The supply was 100 MW higher compared to the same day last year.

Md Ibrahim, a resident of Gazipur's Mirabazar area, told The Business Standard (TBS), "Load-shedding is more frequent in the daytime, at least four times, lasting for hours. Though less outages at night, it is very difficult to sleep without power amid the scorching heat."

On Sunday, many parts of the country, including Dhaka, recorded the highest temperature in decades with the mercury soaring to over 40 degrees Celsius. The hot weather is likely to continue in the next 72 hours, according to the Bangladesh Meteorological Department.

Despite having an adequate generation capacity, the BPDB fails to meet the demand, induced by heatwave and irrigation needs, due to a liquidity crunch which has obstructed it to use the furnace oil-based-private power plants, BPDB sources told TBS.

Downward price of liquified natural gas (LNG) and newly added coal-based plants, however, helped the BPDB to generate electricity, otherwise, the load-shedding situation would have been worse, sources said.

SM Wazed Ali Sardar, a member(Generation) of the BPDB, told TBS that they are trying their best to avoid outages.

"Next few days of Ramadan are crucial. At the end of this month, power demand will drop by 2,000 MW because electricity demand for irrigation will fall by that time," he said.

Liquidity crunch and disputes over payments obstructed the private power producers to run their furnace oil-based plants at maximum capacity.

At present, furnace oil-based power plants' load factor — the rate of capacity use of power plant — is around 50 to 55% which could be up to 66% to 70%.

If private power producers' payable from the BPDB is paid, the load-shedding would be reduced to a minimum level, said industry insiders.

As of now, private power producers have yet to receive the bills of last October.

Power outage hampering irrigation

Load-shedding has been interrupting irrigation in the paddy fields in the last few days which may affect the paddy production in this Boro season.

Sabuj Kumar Sarkar, a farmer from the Hatua area of Nandigaram upazila of Bagura, is farming on 320 bighas of land through one deep and two shallow tube wells.

But watering the paddy fields has become a major problem due to the sudden spike in load-shedding recently, said Sabuj Kumar.

"We did not anticipate the situation. The land is drying up fast due to the intense heat and needs frequent watering. What am I going to do now?" he said with a disappointed face.

Another farmer Mazharul Islam of Benipur village in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi cultivated boro paddy on a three-bigha land. But he too cannot water the land amid the severe heatwave and is afraid of damaging the crops.

Recently, a tribal farmer of Nimghutu village in Godagari tried to commit suicide by consuming poison a few days ago after failing to water his paddy field.

Industrial output troubled by load-shedding

Industrial production in Chattogram is interrupted largely due to frequent load-shedding while factory owners are trying to keep production running with generators, which they say would increase the production cost and make them miss production targets.

The owner of several clothing factories in Chattogram said, before the Eid holidays, there is extra work pressure which requires them to keep the factories open day and night to make shipments on time.

The Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) Director Samsul Azam told TBS that garment factories under BKMEA are running without electricity for six hours out of a 10-hour production process. As a result, production has to be kept running with generators.

Besides, output disruption and damage to machinery are also occurring due to load-shedding.

According to the information of the Chattogram South Department of Electricity Distribution, the daily electricity demand in Chattogram is about 1,400 MW.

M Rezaul Karim, the chief engineer of the Chittagong Power Distribution Department, told TBS that they received 1,000 MW of electricity on Sunday due to a shortage of power generation.

Fatullah Apparels, a Narayanganj-based knitwear factory also struggles with load-shedding.

Its Chief Executive Officer Fazlee Shamim Ehsan said that on Thursday this factory faced power outages six times and once it lasted for two hours.

[Our correspondents from Chattogram, Bagura, Rajshahi, and Khulna contributed to the report]