Power Crisis in Bangladesh and Way Out

Power Crisis in Bangladesh and Way Out

Introduction

1. Bangladesh was doing very good in economy for last decade. GDP growth was more than 6 percent consistently. It could relish further but it seems it has a serious hiccup now. Bangladesh have been facing a huge electricity crisis for long, but currently this crisis has become so acute that the expertise are fearing even the burst of public anger . Power outage is a common phenomenon now-a-days. All these have happened because of the improper Energy Policy of all the successive governments of Bangladesh. But to full fill the dream of being Mid Earn Country (MEC) there is no alternative of solving the power crisis and ensure power security.

How Problem has been worsen

2. As contingency planning several Quick Rental Power Plants (QRPP) were introduced by the present government to confront the power generation and supply crisis .For a limited period of time there were little other options. If these were properly planned and properly managed, this could bring much better dividends. In the mean time long term Power Plant with high capacity could have been planned. So those after 3 to 4 years, these QRPP are taken out of operation. But the beneficiaries thought the crisis as a golden opportunity to make quick money and exploit the situation to their advantage. An indemnity bill was also passed to cover the process of these plants. Government run enterprises Bangladesh petroleum Corporation (BPC) and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPWD) were made responsible to support these Quick Rental Plants. BPC was made to import liquid fuel necessary for theses plant and BPDB was made to purchase power at higher price. This practice is still going on. In both the cases it is public money which is being used for subsidy. The imported liquid fuel based power plants were contingency plants. These were introduced to give some relief till large base load plants were to be commissioned. But none of the major power plants is constructed yet. On the other hand many of the age old power plants are in decaying sate. If these were maintained properly some additional power could be generated. Now keeping these old plants functional have become a big challenge. Those which are in operation have now become so fuel inefficient that supply of additional gas is not enough to even keep the present level of generation. Petrobangla also failed miserably to increase gas production and transmission facilities.