The second largest blackout in the history of the country occurred on Tuesday that leads to darken almost half part of the country. This unexpected disaster hampered industrial production, treatment in hospitals, mobile networks, banking activities and so on.
In last one month, this was the power-crisis for the second time; however, from last seven to eight years, the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGSB) have been continuously claiming the power transmission system of the country to be most modern one. During this period, many projects have been undertaken to upgrade power generation system by investing Tk amounts to thousands of crore.
To investigate the incidence of power failure on Tuesday, a probe committee has been formed leaded by PGCB executive director Yakub Elahi Chowdhury. Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources has undertaken the initiative of forming another two probe committees. However, the PGCB probe committee hasn’t been able to identify the reason of power grid failure even after 24 hours is passed after the incident.
Yakub Elahi Chowdhuru said, “A whole of technical and technological matters are associated with grid system. We’re collecting information by inspecting sub-station, power station and other facilities. It will take some time to find out the cause of the crisis and reach the conclusion.”
Earlier on September 6, due to grid failure, the districts of south-west part of the country including Kushtia and Jashore faced a blackout of almost one and a half hours. For the crisis on Tuesday, almost half of the country remained power-less for around six to seven hours. Generator users faced the problems of being replenished of oil. Water shortage has been seen in many areas. Treatment of patients in the hospitals was hampered; the hospitals authority faced immense pressure to continue services of emergency, operation theaters and air conditioning system. Even, people suffered from disruption in mobile and internet connection.
The country faced maximum period of blackout in the history in 2014, which was for 12 hours, in addition to crisis occurred in national power grid in 2002, 2007, 2009 and 2017. Besides, due to low-quality transmission line, crisis in regional grid is visible regularly.
The authorities concerned said if the maladjustment in the frequency of electricity flow is occurred, then the power is shut down to avoid bigger disaster and the national grid faces power-crisis.
They said government has increased the number of power plants, but didn’t able to improve the transmission and distribution system. Due to old transformation system, frequency imbalance is visible often. It hasn’t been steeped into smart frequency system. As a result, how much megawatt of electricity will be produced and transmitted to different area is decided by National Load Dispatch Center (NLDC). So, it takes time to tackle the crisis and find out the relevant reasons.
Professor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and power expert M Tamim said, “Electricity supply system in our grid and machineries used in it are old that entails problems on a regular basis.”
However, chief engineer of PGCB Morshed Alam Khan said, “We’ve no scope of using old apparatus; rather we use most modern materials. The frequency downed due to technical problems. The probe has been working to find out the reasons behind power failure. They’re collecting data and information, based on which we can trace the causes of the problems.”
On the other hand, after the crisis on Tuesday, many people raised questions regarding the power transmission of nuclear power plant. The tension rose as during the national grid crisis it’s possible to shut down power generation of fuel-based power plant, but it’s impossible to shut down the power production of nuclear power-plant.
Ruppur Power Plant project director Dr Md Shoukat Akbar said there’s almost no risk associated with modern power transmission system around Ruppur Power Plant. Connection process is going on with many cities through seven transmission lines. If transmission at one end is stopped, then the supply will be running through other end. If the grid is disrupted because of big natural calamities, then the power plant will be automatically in control.
About grid trip, power expert professor M Shamsul Alam said many people are marking the problems in machinery as the reason of power failure. Basically, this kind of failure occurred when mismanagement of grid code directions occurs with the gird itself.
He said 30% of the plant is yet to be included in the grid that caused maladjustment in supply-demand situation. When demand of power is increased unprecedentedly compared to supply, then the generators stops working. The risk of power failure will be remains as long as the breach of grid code continues.
@The article appeared on print and online versions of The Bangladesh Pratidin on October 6, 2022 and rewritten in English by Lutful Hoque
