energy shortage

The Bangladeshi government has increased its dependence on rental power, because India has not supplied enough power to meet the country’s electricity demand.

Bangladesh bought high-cost oil-fired rental and quick-rental power to prevent power shortages.

"Indian authority is supplying electricity less than our grid capacity,” said Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) chairman Abduhu Ruhullah.

India is contracted to provide 500MW of power to Bangladesh, but has only supplied 402MW of electricity during daytime peak hours and 368MW during the evening peak time. But a BPDB statistic shows that since the start of the cross-border transmission in October 2013, India rarely supplied over 450MW and has an average supply of 400MW.

Transmission and system losses cause an electricity loss of 6%. "We can get a maximum of 470MW from India due to bottlenecks to the existing transmission system," said Ruhullah.

Also technical glitches in power plants and overhauling power plants prompted the Bangladeshi government to buy power from the open market. The country generates 6,200MW, but has a demand of 7,500MW.

The contract between India and Bangladesh runs for 25 years. The state-owned BPDB is purchasing the electricity from Indian National Thermal Power Corporation.