The government will plan its next steps for electricity rationing after taking stock of the situation during the first week of rolling power outages, according to State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid.
Bangladesh reintroduced daily rotating blackouts with timetables for specific areas on Tuesday as part of tough measures to conserve fuel amid soaring energy prices in the global market.
New schedules for load-shedding will be fixed next week and the situation is likely to improve as time progresses, Hamid told reporters at his residence on Friday.
“After we get the results of the first week of load-shedding, we will make new plans for the week after and fix another schedule.”
“Customers are accepting of the situation due to the special circumstances. I think we can get things in order in 10 days and the situation will get better after that.”
The state minister also highlighted the distinction between cities and rural areas in terms of demand for electricity. “If we shed about 100 megawatts of power both in Dhaka and a rural area, you’ll find that three villages will be without power. This is a problem.”
“The demand for power in villages is very low. Three villages may only consume about 10 megawatts of electricity. But in Dhaka, a single neighbourhood uses 100 megawatts. So if we provide about 100 megawatts of power in Dhaka and around 60 megawatts outside the capital, we can cover large swathes of rural areas.”
Hamid admitted that the rural parts of the country are being hit by longer spells of load-shedding than cities. “Some villages are experiencing around five hours of load-shedding. We will think about new measures for these areas next week.”
The demand for gas in factories and industrial units is also climbing, according to Hamid. “The majority of our gas supply is being directed to industries.”
“Only 10 per cent of the total diesel stock in the country is used for power generation. The remaining 90 per cent is used by the agriculture and transportation sectors.”
The state minister believes the situation will be somewhat normal when the Rampal power station begins generating electricity next year.
“If we can tolerate these circumstances for a while, we’ll be able to rely on a few alternative fuel-based power plants. We are bringing them into operation next year.”
