It needs no emphasising that the efforts of the incumbent government to supply electricity to every corner of the country deserve plaudits. The government over the last ten years has developed the country’s power sector in a planned way addressing it as one of the most essential sectors for sustainable development of the country. Under the current government’s leadership, Bangladesh has achieved remarkable success in power generation and many internationally renowned companies have already invested in the country’s power and energy sector. More and more regions which were previously isolated have been connected to the electricity grid. The government is targeting to generate 60,000 MW of electricity by 2041.To this end, 33 power plants with 13659 MW capacity are under construction at different stages. Besides, around 1700MW of electricity will be imported from India and Nepal. In addition a total of 22 power plants with capacity of 3,016MW are now under agreement processing and tenders are underway for six more power plants with a capacity of 639 MW.
Power situation has improved in big cities including
Dhaka but load shedding is happening in District,
Upazila and village areas due to
limitation of transmission and distribution system
Though we are now self-sufficient in power generation and our generation capacity surpasses our demand, still there are a number of challenges that must be addressed prudently. The big challenge is to supply uninterrupted electricity at specific voltages and frequencies. There is no denying that the country’s power generation capacity has increased by four-fold over the last ten years but still the problems of power outages, low-voltage and load-shedding persist in some areas due to limitations in power transmission and distribution systems.
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Power situation has improved in big cities including Dhaka but load shedding is happening in District, Upazila and village areas due to limitation of transmission and distribution system. Hence, focus should be given on improving the power distribution and transmission system in villages instead of increasing generation capacity.
Needless to say, the efforts of the government to improve country’s power sector set an example for our future leaders. However, in order make the country self-reliant in power generation, it will be important to keep the pace of development in power sector unhindered. Also, focus should be given on formulating new policies to increase the production and consumption of renewable energy to ensure environment-friendly energy production.
