Power and Energy State Minister Anindya Islam Amit voiced hope Wednesday that the country’s power situation would visibly improve within the next 15 days. He said the government is making every effort to ensure the hardship people faced over power and gas supply in August is not repeated in September.
The state minister made the comments in parliament in response to a supplementary question from opposition MP Nurul Islam Bulbul on the country’s ongoing power crisis. The parliamentary session began at 3:30 p.m., chaired by Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmed.
Expressing regret over the power and gas crisis, Anindya Islam Amit said: “I say this with a sense of responsibility — I don’t want to hide the real truth behind mere words. People in this country have recently been suffering because of power and gas supply issues.”
The state minister described the current crisis as the inevitable consequence of long-standing policy mistakes in the power and energy sector, saying the recent Middle East crisis has added fresh pressure on top of that.
Highlighting the limits of over-reliance on gas-based power generation, the state minister said the country’s gas-based power plants have a combined generation capacity of roughly 12,000 megawatts. Fully utilizing that capacity would require about 1,900 million cubic feet of gas per day. But combined domestic production and imported LNG currently allow for a supply of only 2,300 to 2,700 million cubic feet.
He said that in trying to boost power generation, there is a risk of creating shortages in gas supply to industry and households. Gas supply therefore has to be balanced across three sectors: power generation, industry and households.
The state minister also cited the shutdown of several power plants as a factor behind the crisis. He said a 616-megawatt unit at the Payra power plant is offline due to a technical fault, while a unit of the same capacity at the Matarbari power plant is also shut down for maintenance.
He said Bangladesh is also not receiving the contracted amount of power from India’s Adani Group. Under the agreement, the country is supposed to receive 1,600 megawatts, but is currently getting roughly 900 megawatts during the day and about 1,100 megawatts in the evening.
The state minister also said faults in two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) used to supply imported LNG had created major strain on the energy supply system. The fault occurred in the FSRUs on July 21, and repairs took roughly 21 to 22 days, affecting power generation as well. He claimed, however, that roughly 88% of the crisis has now been resolved.
Anindya Islam Amit said steps have been taken to quickly restart the shut-down units at the Payra and Matarbari power plants to manage the situation, and that he is hopeful the power situation will improve within the next 15 days.
“The hardship the people of Bangladesh had to endure in August — we are making an all-out effort to ensure that, at the very least, they don’t have to endure that same hardship in September,” he said.
The state minister also said long-term initiatives, including rooftop solar, are being taken to address the power crisis ahead of next summer. He expressed hope that the government’s new rooftop solar policy would mean people would not face the kind of power-related hardship next summer that they are experiencing now.
Describing MPs’ concerns about the power and energy sector as natural, the state minister said the government would work to provide people’s representatives with accurate information and clear up misunderstandings about the sector.