Day and night load shedding
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| Load Shedding। Photo:Collected |
Chittagong is under severe load shedding. About one third of the demand has to be handled by load shedding. Despite various efforts, PDB is unable to maintain the electricity load-shedding schedule. Although one hour load shedding is mentioned, load shedding has to be done for one hour morning-evening and night.
According to sources, there are 19 public and private power plants in Chittagong. The production capacity of all the power plants is close to 1500 megawatts. But in Chittagong currently, on an average, 900 to 1000 megawatts of electricity is produced. All the electricity generated here is fed to the National Grid. Electricity supply comes to Chittagong through National Grid. Chittagong has an average electricity demand of 1500 megawatts.
In off-peak hours, this demand drops below 1200 MW. Electricity is supplied through 450 feeders in Chittagong.
Electricity has to be supplied to 1 thousand 470 small and big factories including 450 garments in Chittagong. About 200 garment factories export garments worth crores of rupees. Apart from this, there are about 1200 factories in cement, tile, steel, plastic mills. Where regular electricity supply is required. Bringing all these factories under rationing will have a negative impact on the overall economy of the country including exports. As a result, several PDB officials said that they tried to give some additional benefits to the factories.
Hourly load shedding was supposed to be done to deal with gas and electricity shortages in the country. In the above process, load shedding of 5 to 7 megawatts is supposed to be done in different substations of Chittagong. But admitting that the actual situation has become very complicated, PDB officials said that it is not possible to save the schedule in any way. Load shedding has to be done day and night. In some areas, load shedding has to be done five to seven times a day. Stating that the situation has become critical due to lack of one-third of the demand, officials said that the demand for electricity has increased during the puja. But it is not possible to increase the production in that way. There is a gas shortage. Gas-fired power plants, including one in Roujan, are experiencing production disruptions. The officials also said that it is not possible to save the load shedding schedule. A top official of PDB Chittagong zone said on condition of anonymity. To maintain the schedule there must be an account of demand and supply. Now we don't get any advance calculation of exactly how many megawatts of electricity we will get. I share what I get. He also admitted that some areas are suffering from additional load shedding.
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