Most of the distribution entities in power supply have to shed load more than their target as they receive lower amounts of electricity from the generation end.
Officials of the power distribution companies said they have been publishing their respective schedules of power cuts in their areas in advance as per the directives of the government, but failed to maintain those due to the lower supply.
According to official sources, the Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited (DPDC) had planned to carry out a load shedding of 115 MW to serve its peak demand of about 1600 MW.
Also read: DPDC, Desco publish Thursday’s load shedding schedules
“But we had to go for 135 MW power cuts on Thursday instead of the planned 115 MW”, said Bikash Dewan, managing director of the DPDC.
He informed that he had to increase the amount of load shedding due to a lower supply received from the generation end.
He also noted that the areas under DPDC normally consume power between 1500 MW-1600 MW during the summer.
“If weather remains relatively favourable with lower heat waves, the demands slightly drop”, he told UNB.
DPDC supplies electricity to south-west, south-east and central parts of Dhaka city and also a part of Narayanganj.
The situation is relatively worse in the areas under the Dhaka Electric Supply Company Limited (Desco) as the entity had to go for the double amount of load shedding that it plans.
“The Desco had to go for 180 MW of load shedding against a target of only 80 MW on Thursday”, said Kausar Ameer Ali, managing director of the company.
He, however, informed that Desco has to serve the peak load during the day hour as its consumers are mainly household and commercial.
Desco supplies electricity to the north, north-west and north-east parts of Dhaka city and also a part of Tongi area under Gazipur district.
Also read: Country experiences 1915 MW load shedding on Tuesday
The consumers in other distribution entities including Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board, West Zone Power Distribution Company (WZPDC), and Northern Electricity Supply Company Limited (Nesco) are facing almost similar conditions in power supply as they have to experience load shedding beyond their schedules.
The official data of the BPDB shows that the country’s generation was forecasted to be 12,570 MW against a demand of 14,200 MW with a shortage of 1,630 MW.
The load shedding for Thursday was projected to 1,365 MW to cover the gap between demand and supply.
But most of the officials and energy experts do not have trust in the official figure as they believe the demand is more than the projected one which was shown in a suppressed way.
Meanwhile, the Power Division held a meeting of the top executives of the power generation and distribution entities with power secretary Habibur Rahman in the chair on Thursday.
The meeting discussed the overall situation and took a number of steps to implement the decisions of the government in regard to saving electricity.
The meeting asked the power distribution entities to inform their consumers about the load shedding schedules.
Source: United News of Bangladesh