Bangladesh power plants resume production

Dhaka, May 20: Bangladesh began to restore power to much of the country after a transformer explosion and fire led to power station shutdowns supplying about of the fifth of the nation's electricity demand, officials said on Saturday.

The outages exacerbated a chronic power shortage in the national grid that has led to violent protests from farmers and others seeking reliable supplies of electricity.

Eight plants were shut down over the last two days, including one at Ashuganj, east of Dhaka, which was closed after a transformer exploded, triggering a fire.

''All the eight power plants across the country came back to operation by Friday evening,'' A.S.M. Bazlul Haq, a director of Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), told Reuters.

''Besides, the Ghorashal power plant, also east of the capital, has been adding 180 mw to the national grid since Friday evening, after being closed for maintenance,'' Bazlul said.

Total electricity generated on Friday was 35,000 megawatt (MW) from 33,820 mw on Thursday, he said. Officials said 11 other units remained closed for maintenance.

The outages came as Bangladesh was already facing a violent protest over months of nagging power shortages. More than 20 people, mostly farmers, were killed in the country's northwest, where police fired on hundreds of protesters demanding adequate supplies of electricity and diesel to run irrigation pumps.

Bangladesh has had an average daily shortfall of 1,500 megawatt (MW) of power supply, with demand of 4,500 MW.

Only 30 percent of the country's 140 million people have access to power. In some rural areas, electricity is available for only about four hours a day. Even the capital Dhaka endures five to six hours of power cuts a day.

Power shortages have been identified as a critical hindrance to economic development in Bangladesh. A World Bank study showed that frequent power failures cut Bangladesh's gross domestic product (GDP) by around $1.0 billion.

The country has an installed electricity capacity of 4,800 MW and demand will increase to more than 8,000 MW by 2011, officials said.

But the power industry performed poorly in 2005, adding only 80 MW to the national grid and no new plants were built by the private sector.

Several new plants had been expected to start operations but they have fallen behind schedule due to funding and other problems, officials said.

Reuters