UNB, Dhaka :
The Power Division has shifted from its earlier position that the nationwide blackout on November 1 had originated from a technical glitch in the transmission line into Bheramara from Baharampur in West Bengal, connecting the two countries’ grids and allowing Bangladesh to import electricity from its larger neighbour.
“Our primary investigation and data analysis of the incident have clearly revealed that the grid failure had taken place from an internal technical error, not for a fault in the cross border transmission line,” State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid said at a press conference at the Power Division on Thursday evening.
The junior minister made the remarks after receiving the primary findings of the 8-member inquiry committee formed to investigate the incident at the heart of the 11-hour blackout (even longer in many places) that struck at 11:28 am on November 1.
Flanked by the members of the inquiry committee, Nasrul Hamid, however, said it is not possible to reach a final conclusion on the issue until detailed investigation into the depth of the incident. “It needs more time and the committee has already sought an additional 10 days to wrap up their inquiry report,” he added.
The head of the inquiry committee, Power Division’s additional secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus, and Power Cell director general and committee member Mohammad Hossain also spoke at the press conference while other senior officials were present. The state minister said the grid failure incident took place due to fault at some points in the Bangladesh system, “but we’re yet to ascertain” the specific point from which it had generated.
“After this primary report, the committee will now proceed on its basis to reach a final conclusion. We’ve found the way to proceed further for completing the job… this incident (blackout) had been a blessing in disguise,” he told reporters adding that this has shown “we need to do more to take preventive measures in our power system to avert further such incident.”
Nasrul Hamid disagreed with the idea that some of the ministers’ comments on the grid failure incident have influenced the committee to reach a primary conclusion that this did not happen due to any glitch in the cross border power lines.
Inquiry committee member Mohammad Hossain said there was a technical fault in the cross border transmission lines on the day of incident, but that did not affect the Bangladesh power system as there was state-of-art protective system in the Bheramara grid substation in Bangladesh part to prevent any effect of a fault to be generated in the cross border lines.
“When a fault generated in the cross border lines, the digitized system at the Bheramara substation had prevented it from any sequel effect in the Bangladesh power system,” he added.
The head of the inquiry committee, Dr Ahmad Kaikaus, said his committee members have taken records of most of the key installations in the power system including the Beramara grid substation and Ashuganj power station.
He noted that some of the installations including Ashuganj power station has been a 40-year-old setup and many of them have no digital system which creates difficulty for the committee to draw its conclusion on the incident.
