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Power crisis and measure

[Prepared by Research & Paper work team]

In February last year, the government achieved the milestone of bringing power to
all corners of Bangladesh, thanks to its hyperdrive to make it happen over the last
one decade. Today (5 June,2023) the country is reeling under an unprecedented load
shedding of around 2,500 megawatts, equivalent to what the country used to produce
in total during the late nineties.

The reason behind-

● There is not enough foreign exchange to import gas and coal. As a result, as
of Saturday, a little over half of 24,143MW power capacity could be used.
● Of the total 170 power units, only 57 ran at full capacity on Saturday, 62 were
able to use half their capacity while 51 remained idle.
● All this has huge fiscal implications -- both due to the capacity payment to the
power companies for idle plants and a sheer waste of precious foreign
exchange spent to set up the plants.
● Because of the revenue crunch, private power producers have not been paid
bills to the tune of Tk 18,000 crore as of March 2023.

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Impacts On Economy:

● Businesses are now crying for power as production has been hit hard, which
has sinister implications both in terms of revenue and employment.

● When the wheels of industries slow down, the government gets less and less
revenue, leading to a wider budget deficit.

● When the power crisis continues, public life in both cities and the countryside
has become increasingly unbearable, with load shedding occurring even every
one or two hours in some areas.

● This situation is especially suffocating for consumers in rural areas,

particularly the elderly and minors, who are left in a state of discomfort due
to prolonged hours of repeated power outages amidst the unbearable heat.

● Businesses and services that rely on electricity face disruptions, and shops and
markets are compelled to close earlier than usual. Moreover, the load shedding
has triggered a severe water crisis in various cities over the past few days.

How to tackle this situation :

While the government blames the Ukraine war for all the trouble in the energy and
other sectors, experts also fault certain wrong policies and failure to implement some
aspects of good policies in the power sector.

● Handling gas crisis

The oil and gas exploration also did not get due attention. There was an emphasis on
strengthening the country's own exploration company Bapex, but the plan did not
quite work due to the leadership failure of its owning company Petrobangla. There
were some attempts to attract international oil companies to explore the Bay of
Bengal for oil and gas. But the company wanted to renegotiate its terms and the
government did not agree. The deal fell flat. Since then, nothing much happened in
the Bay.

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● Handling coal
Although a bit different but a similar fate happened when the government went for
coal-fired plants. Instead of tapping its own coal in a greater way, it relied on
imported coal, meaning huge foreign currency drainage. Bangladesh has five
coalfields having in place an estimated 2 billion tonnes of reserve. Of them, the
country has only developed one mine in Barapukuria that has as much as 390 million
tonnes of coal. But as the country resorted to underground mining, it has so far
produced only 13 million tonnes, which has been mainly used for the generation of
around 525MW of power at the mine site.

There had been no move to explore and develop the other coal fields of the country.
But all the while, the government signed several massive coal power projects for
which billions of dollars' worth of coal need to be imported each year.

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● Handling renewable energy

It was a great goal -- once a renewable energy infrastructure is built, it no longer
has to depend on any imported or local energy supply. But this is where the
government failed to implement this policy. In 2021, renewable energy coverage
achieved less than 3 per cent of the total energy mix. There was more emphasis on
building large fossil fuel projects, while little attention was given to green power.

It is now estimated to establish 1,370MW megawatts of wind energy by 2030, a

potential that the nation could have tapped long ago.

● Electricity import

The idea of importing cheap electricity from India, Nepal and Bhutan has been there
since the nineties. But this government materialised the idea through the import of
power from India in 2013. The cost of this power is not cheap but reasonable. And
this has enhanced the energy security of the country. But earlier this year, the
government started importing power from the Indian Adani group under a deal never
discussed in the public before. This deal is so tilted towards Adani that it would
financially drain Bangladesh.

With this, Bangladesh has digressed from the original idea of buying cheap hydro or
other renewable power from the neighbouring countries and created a long-term
burden on itself.

However, for future planning, specialist recommended strengthening Bapex so that

local gas production improves and urged the authorities to produce coal from local
mines instead of importing it.Government must focus on harnessing local primary
energy sources such as gas and coal. He also asked the government to boost
renewable energy capacity by implementing rooftop solar panels on public and
private office and industry buildings.

Latifur’s Focus Writing