Power supply situation to improve in three weeks: Adviser

Dr Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, power and energy adviser of the interim government, on Wednesday said that the power supply situation would improve within three weeks as necessary measures were being taken in this regard.

The remarks from the adviser came against the backdrop of increasing load shedding across the country in recent days.

Mainly lack of adequate gas supply and technical faults at different power plants are blamed by the officials for the worsening power supply situation.

Pointing to the situation, the adviser said he had a coordination meeting with the Power Division and Energy Division where secretaries of both the divisions were present.

He noted that Rampal power plant, which remained closed for technical fault for the last few days, has resumed production while Barapukuria coal fired power plant, with three units shut for technical fault, will come back to production soon.

"Steps have been taken to fix the problems in the 525 MW Barapukuria power plant,” he said during a meeting with executive committee members of the Forum for Energy Reporters Bangladesh (FERB) at the conference room of his ministry on Wednesday.

FERB chair Shamim Jajangir, executive director Sirajul Islam and other executive members of the organisation were present on the occasion.

Fouzul Kabir Khan, also adviser for road transport and bridges and railway, informed that technical problems of the Summit Group's FSRU, which is known as a LNG terminal, has been fixed and now it is waiting for resuming production.

It will take about 20 days to import LNG from abroad to resume production at the terminal, he said.

He also noted that initiatives have been taken to pay Adani Group's pending bills to continue receiving power supply from the plant.

Meanwhile, it was reported that load shedding has been increasing across the country as power generation from gas-based stations was still below the expected level.

According to official sources, the country had to experience a load shedding of over 2,000 MW in the last few days to meet the demand of 15,500 MW.

The extent of load shedding was relatively lower at below 1,500 MW on Wednesday at the day time.

Officials of the BPDB said that they had not been able to generate electricity from their gas-fired power plants due to lack of adequate supply of gas.

The available data of the BPDB shows that 4,169 MW of electricity is not being produced due to low gas supply to a good number of plants.

The statistics show that the country produced 2,564 MMCFD against a demand of about 4,000 MMCFD gas.