“Electricity comes and goes, and on top of that, more money is being deducted. I can’t even keep the prepaid card topped up. They’re taking a lot of money.”
Rojina, a rural electrification customer in Savar, offered this reaction when asked about the power situation. Like Rojina, a number of other consumers complain that the electricity crisis is far worse, both day and night.
Electricity customers across various parts of Bangladesh say both load-shedding and electricity bills have risen.
Complaints of load-shedding are heaviest in rural areas in particular. Some areas have experienced, or are still experiencing, load-shedding of up to 10 to 12 hours.
Of Bangladesh’s more than 50 million electricity customers overall, 37.1 million are rural electrification customers. That means ordinary consumers in villages, small towns and rural municipalities are bearing the brunt of the load-shedding.
Alongside the hardship facing residential customers because of the supply shortfall, small and medium businesses and export-oriented factories are also facing a crisis.
Many industrial establishments generate their own electricity using gas to keep factories running, in what are known as captive power plants. Business owners say the gas shortage has caused a comparatively bigger power shortfall at factories this year.
A factory owner in Gazipur said: “We’re running on diesel generators. That’s driving our production costs up sharply. Some are being forced to shut down. Production has fallen 30 to 40 percent because of the electricity situation. Many are struggling to keep going on diesel generators because the cost is so much higher.”
He said that although many are receiving orders from foreign buyers, they cannot finish the work on time because of the power situation, which is increasing pressure. Buyers are talking about air shipment, he said, or warning that if the shipment isn’t made on time, they will take the order elsewhere.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that because of prolonged load-shedding, customers attacked and vandalized electricity offices in some parts of the country this month. As a result, the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board Association has written to the police chief seeking security for grids, substations and offices.
In addition, electricity offices in various districts, including Gopalganj and Nilphamari, have separately applied to police or local administrations for security.
Capacity and the crisis
According to the Power Division, Bangladesh’s current electricity generation capacity, including captive power, is 33,000 megawatts. Power Development Board data puts grid-level capacity, including imports from Nepal and India, at 29,593 megawatts.
Bangladesh’s highest-ever single-day generation record was set in May this year, at 17,201 megawatts.
However, alongside that generation record, this year has also produced a record for load-shedding, or shortfall, compared with the past several years.
According to Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) data, the highest single-day load-shedding — 3,757 megawatts — occurred on August 10.
Power Division figures show peak summer demand this year exceeded 18,000 megawatts.
The government says the shortfall in power generation stems from a primary-energy crisis, and that a shortage of LNG imports this year in particular made the situation especially difficult to manage.
Prime Minister Tareque Rahman has apologized to the public over the current crisis in the power and energy sector.
The government says it will need at least two years to improve the power and energy situation, and that a 10-year action plan for the power sector will be presented to parliament.
Because of the severe power crisis, the previous government had taken emergency steps to build oil-fired and imported-coal-fired power plants, and had enacted special legislation to boost private-sector power generation without competitive tender.
That government had also spoken of bringing 100 percent of villages under electricity coverage, and had widely publicized various short-, medium- and long-term power-sector development plans.
The reality is that although generation capacity was expanded, gas extraction did not increase and coal was not extracted, which increased import dependence. A major problem arose from costly primary energy and growing import dependence.
In addition, low-cost power plants that were planned did not come online on schedule, and failure to expand renewable-energy use as planned made the situation more complicated.
There has also been a sharp rise in spending on capacity charges, or rent, paid to privately owned power plants.
Dr. Khandaker Golam Moazzem, research director at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), discussing the power crisis, said: “The power crisis has grown more and more complicated by the day.”
Under the previous government, coal-fired power plants were not built quickly, and renewable-energy generation plans were not completed on schedule. Toward the end of its tenure, a shortage of dollars and energy produced a shortfall in power generation.
Although the interim government broadly managed to keep the situation under control, liabilities and subsidies rose. The new government, having taken over, is now struggling to manage the situation amid rising energy prices linked to the Middle East war and mechanical faults in import infrastructure.
Dr. M Shamsul Alam, energy adviser at the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), has worked for a long time on power-sector planning, policy and pricing.
His analysis is that Bangladesh’s previous government prioritized power generation using costly fuel, failed to ensure fuel diversification as planned under its own reform blueprint, increased gas imports and failed to sufficiently expand power generation from renewable sources.
“In the past, on one hand they ensured a supply of expensive fuel. On the other hand, they built generation capacity well beyond demand. And in doing so, they changed laws and eliminated competition entirely. Extremely costly investments were brought in. A structure for large-scale plunder was built systemically — a structure that has still not been dismantled, and there’s no visible sign the government is even thinking about dismantling it,” he said.
In Shamsul Alam’s analysis, the power sector has also shifted structurally away from being a government service and become a profit-driven sector, which has deepened the crisis.
In his view, the government should serve the public at cost price, and needs to move the power sector away from profit-seeking.
“Profit is being made everywhere — in distribution, in transmission, in generation, in fuel supply. The government is extracting profit at every point, earning cost-plus revenue rather than fair, actual cost, wherever it operates. Second, this sector needs to be re-established as a service sector,” he said.
Analysts say Bangladesh is not in a position to supply as much fuel as its power sector needs, and that the government is also facing various obstacles in taking swift action on the alternative sources that do exist.
Noting that the new government has been consulting power and energy experts at various points, CAB’s energy adviser said: “Consumers have offered the government some advice on tackling the problem. Our existing coal-based capacity isn’t being fully used — that needs to increase. We’ve said scrap the oil option. We’ve said bring in power from nuclear. We’ve said aim for 20 percent from renewable energy, and said raise efficiency. We’ve said tackle the whole thing this way. And we’ve said, if needed, add more coal-fired power plants. The government needs to bring about this kind of sweeping change to break free from the trap that has been built, in the name of energy security, under state patronage, through which we have been plundered.”
Asked what the government should do to solve the problem, Dr. Khandaker Golam Moazzem of CPD said: “Gradually moving away from a gas-based system toward renewable energy, or an electricity-based system, is actually one solution. For instance, gas-based boilers need to shift to electric boilers. Similarly, cutting diesel use and moving to electric vehicles. Similarly, moving to solar-based irrigation and away from diesel-run irrigation. In households where cooking is done on gas, shifting to electric stoves instead.”
Power imports
Analysts see regional cooperation as important for tackling the power problem.
CPD researcher Dr. Khandaker Golam Moazzem said: “What we import is about nine percent of total power demand. That’s certainly significant. If the regional grid were active right now, with greater capacity, we could urgently draw on the surplus power India has in various other places to help meet this shortfall. So we need to think about this regional grid going forward.”
On importing power from India, M Shamsul Alam criticized the Adani agreement, saying it needs to be revised to lower the tariff.
He is, however, in favor of importing power via the grid.
“If negotiations with Adani don’t bring the tariff down, then that agreement should be cancelled and power should not be imported that way,” he said. “But under the government-to-government agreements it is importing, and there’s an opportunity for hydropower from Nepal or Bhutan, and the government has taken that initiative — some of that import has already begun. There’s also an opportunity to bring gas or electricity from Myanmar, and even oil and coal from India. If there’s an opportunity to bring it in at a competitive price, the government must certainly consider doing so, in the interest of preserving our energy security and the fuel-mix diversity we’re talking about.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report