Energy Bangla - Bangladesh Power Sector Beset by Plethora of Woes

The power sector experts see no respite from the country's power crisis in the next few years, although the new government announced that they would bring around 750 MW by June and increase power generation to 5000 MW by 2011, as viewed by experts.
Although there is a declared announcement in the Planning Commission's chart that lenders are showing interest in financing various power projects in the country -- upto 700 MW in private sector and another 1,200 MW in public sector, the situation is not the same as the previous political and caretaker governments have failed to tap funds and now the lenders are hit by global recession. .
The power crisis will persist because power demand continues to shoot up by 10 per cent every year at a time when financial condition of the sector is highly messed up globally. On the other hand, the government has failed to install base-load plants in the last seven years.
"First Bangladesh has to catch up with its load shedding of 2,500 MW by adding new plants. Then every year you need to add 500 MW base load to the system," said Forrest Cookson, power sector expert.
The frequency of power outages in the country has increased for the last two weeks with around 800 MW to 1000 MW of load shedding in the evening peak hours because of a drop in power generation.
The power generation in the evening has dropped to around 3300 MW from around 3500 MW against the official demand of around 4100 MW. The total generation is around 3250 MW on an average now.
Power officials attributed the drop in the generation to gas shortage although the supply of gas by Petrobangla has not decreased, said sources close to the power sector.
The generation of electricity was around 3800 MW before the Awami League-led government took office, but slack monitoring by the Power Division in the last few weeks has shown a decrease in generation, Power Division sources said.
The power outages are likely to increase with more than 1500 MW load shedding once the weather becomes warmer with the advent of summer.
The PDB has to generate at least 4000 MW of electricity during the summer, when the demand will shoot up to 5500 MW, to give some respite to the people but there is doubt among the officials whether the board will be able to generate that amount because of gas shortage and vulnerability of old power units. According to the power sector officials, on an average, peak-hour generation was 3695 MW in November 2008. In December 2008, it was 3646 MW, but from January 6 to February 1 PDB produced 3480 MW electricity on an average.
On the other hand, the country experienced 328 MW load shedding in November, 2008, 119 MW in December, 2008
Experts said the government may not be able to face the situation even it opens the pending file of the ministry to purchase power from neighbouring countries.
Severe financial mismanagement, corruption, inefficient operation and lack of tariff adjustment have landed the country's power sector in this mess, Cookson observed.
According to the World Bank report, there are 1,000 MW-capable over-priced and under-performing public sector power plants. Another 2,500 MW-capable plants have remained incomplete due to bad procurement practices. At least $ 150 million is annually leaked through corruption.
Power Ministry sources said the caretaker government's high-cost rental power plants (both short and long-term) are still crawling. Aiming at adding around 650 MW to the national grid by March 2007, the caretaker government signed high-cost power projects but those are suffering for bad procurement practices.