Bangladesh’s power system has little effective backup as shortages and technical problems simultaneously constrain gas, coal and liquid fuel generation, leaving the grid increasingly vulnerable when a major power plant goes offline.
The vulnerability became more apparent after one of the two units of Adani Power’s Godda plant in India tripped after developing a boiler problem around Thursday midnight, halving its supply to Bangladesh, said officials of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB).
Following the shutdown, output fell below 750 megawatts (MW), down from around 900MW during daytime and 1,200MW during evenings since the end of August, shows data from the Power Grid Corporation of Bangladesh.
The boiler will need about 48 hours to cool down before repair work can begin, said PDB officials, adding that restoration can take several days.
Subsequently, load shedding was severe throughout Thursday: the average hourly load shedding stood at 2,657MW.
At around 3:00pm, when demand stood at 16,345MW, the shortfall reached 3,557MW, meaning nearly 22 percent of the electricity demand could not be served.
The impact appeared less severe during yesterday’s evening peak only because demand fell sharply for the weekend. At 9:00pm the demand stood at 15,905MW against supply of 14,879 MW, leaving load shedding of 1,026MW.
If demand remains high in the coming weeks, load shedding could stay at the levels seen over the past couple of weeks or worsen further, the PDB officials said.
Against the country’s installed generation capacity of 29,593MW, the loss of one Adani unit represented only a tiny fraction of total capacity.
Under normal circumstances, the sudden loss of several hundred megawatts from one plant could be compensated by increasing generation elsewhere, according to PDB officials.
But the outage came at a time when gas-fired generation is hovering around 4,800MW, while heavy fuel oil (HFO)/furnace oil plants are averaging around 2,200MW, rising to around 3,500MW during peak periods.
Overall generation has remained around 13,000MW to 14,000MW against demand of roughly 16,000MW to 17,000MW during high-demand periods.
“With gas-fired plants remaining fuel-constrained, several coal-fired plants facing supply or technical problems, and HFO plants already pushed harder during peak periods, the system has little room to absorb another major outage,” said one of the PDB officials.
The Thursday spike capped an already difficult week, with load shedding averaging more than 1,700MW an hour over the seven days through Thursday.
The ongoing power and energy crisis began with the US-Israel war on Iran from February 28, disrupting Bangladesh’s long-term LNG supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. LNG supply has remained below normal amid high prices in a volatile spot market.
Total gas supply currently stands at around 2,300 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd), compared with the usual level of around 2,650mmcfd.
Of the 59 gas-capable plants or unit entries listed in the latest generation status data, at least 26 -- about 44 percent -- are facing gas shortage, low gas pressure or other gas supply-related constraints. Several major gas-fired plants are sitting idle or operating well below capacity.
With gas-fired generation constrained, coal was expected to provide much of the backup, as Bangladesh has 8,423MW of installed coal-fired capacity across eight plants.
But generation data show a substantial gap between installed capacity and actual output.
The eight coal-fired plants generated an average of around 5,637MW on Thursday, equivalent to about 67 percent of their combined installed capacity.
The immediate impact of the Adani outage was partly masked by higher generation from Rampal, which had been operating well below capacity in the previous days before raising output from Thursday.
By 4:00pm Friday, coal-fired generation averaged around 4,800MW.
Payra averaged 570MW from its 1,244MW capacity on Thursday amid a machine problem that has persisted for around two months, while RNPL’s 1,244MW Patuakhali plant averaged around 715MW amid a coal-supply constraint.
Rampal is producing around 1,045MW against its 1,234MW capacity, while SS Power is averaging around 1,050MW from 1,224MW.
Matarbari is operating closest to full capacity, averaging around 1,130MW against its 1,150MW installed capacity.
The 307MW Barisal Electric Power plant averaged around 171MW, while the Power Division’s status sheet separately cited “bad quality coal” as a constraint at the plant.
Subsequently, the government is increasingly relying on liquid fuel plants to provide additional generation during peak demand.
The September plan was to raise furnace oil generation to around 4,000MW on average from 53 public and private plants, as part of a broader effort to offset the gas shortage and create more room to divert gas from power generation to industries.
But HFO generation has so far averaged only around 2,200MW, although output has been ramped up to around 3,500MW during peak hours.
That means furnace oil plants are already providing a significant part of the system’s peak-period backup, but average output remains below the government’s September target.
PDB member (generation) Md Zahurul Islam could not be reached for comment.
