Power supply system partially restored
Courtesy New Age 17/11/07
The power authorities partially brought the electricity supply system back into operation on Saturday, restoring most of the national grid and fixing some of the power plants that tripped on Friday after the onslaught of Sidr, the latest cyclone to hit Bangladesh.
The worst cyclone-hit southern districts like Barguna, Pirojpur, Patuakhali, Barisal and Khulna, however, remained shrouded by darkness in the night as authorities could not repair damaged transmission and distribution systems.
There was prolonged load-shedding in the more fortunate areas, including the capital, even though the national grid was restored because of the large gap between demand and supply.
‘We have restored 98 cent of the generation system and 90 per cent of the transmission and distribution system, except in the most stricken southern districts,’ said acting chairman of the Power Development Board, Shawkat Ali, at a press briefing on Saturday evening.
Apart from the six to seven southern districts and Dhanmondi in the city, the power supply situation will be like pre-cyclone days by Sunday, and in the other parts of the country it will be restored fully in four days, he said.
Power generation crept to 1,900 MW by 4:00pm on Saturday from around 600 MW on Friday night after the national grid was restored partially and five power units were brought into operation after they tripped.
Because of the damage sustained by the transmission and distribution lines during the cyclone on Thursday night, the national grid first tripped on Friday morning, shutting down all 26 power plants. The entire country went without electricity for nearly 24 hours.
The national grid, after it was partially restored and five power units were brought back into operation, again became inoperative on Friday evening because of the high demand for electricity.
Shawkat told reporters that generation would be increased to 2,700 MW in the evening peak hours after the full restoration of the 210 MW Ghorashal-4, 450 MW Meghnaghat and 360 MW Haripur independent power plants.
Electricity generation, however, increased to 2,300 MW at 8:00pm, but there was little chance that it might rise to 2,500 MW in rest of the night, officials of PDB told New Age at around 8:10pm.
Power outages were frequent and prolonged in the peak hours. The ‘official’ demand for power was around 2,900 MW, but many power officials believe that the demand was over 3,500 MW as it is usually around 5,000 MW in the evening peak hours on a normal day.
The PDB usually generated around 3,600 MW of power in the evening peak hours before the cyclone.
Many parts of the city and other areas also suffered from frequent load-shedding throughout the day as the demand for power was much higher than the supply of around 1,700-1,900 MW.
DESA got 560 MW of electricity against the demand for 900 MW during the day, while DESCO got 245 MW against the demand for 265 MW and REB got 750 MW against the demand for 1,200 MW, and the PDB and West Zone Power Distribution Company got the rest of the electricity.
The Rural Electrification Board’s chairman, Habib Ullah Majumdar, told reporters that they were yet to restore any sort of electricity supply to worse-hit seven Palli Bidyut Samities in Barguna, Barisal, Pirjopur, Patuakhali and Bagerhat.
‘We have mobilised additional manpower for these samities from northern districts. We hope to restore the power supply in these areas in three to four days,’ he said.
Majumdar said that power supply was restored partially in 22 samities.
He said that 1,722 poles have been broken, 7,679 poles tilted, 7,000 kilometres of wire snapped and 25 towers, 6,217 meters and 56 sub-stations damaged by the cyclone.
The Dhaka Electric Supply Authority’s chairman, Nazrul Hasan, said that apart from Dhanmondi sub-station, where two transformers were damaged, electricity supply network of other DESA areas were restored; and the Dhaka Electric Supply Company’s managing director, Saleh Ahmed, said that they had restored all the supply network by Saturday evening.
‘It will take around three to four days to repair the transformers in Dhanmondi, and in the meantime we will supply electricity to the area through alternative arrangements. The area will undergo load-shedding in the meantime,’ said Nazrul.
