Even though there are legitimate concerns regarding the global energy market, which have led to energy shocks in Bangladesh, the government’s mismanagement and poor planning in the power sector have contributed to the crisis.
According to energy experts, the government’s plans are not in keeping with reality. The crisis has been created because business interests were put before the ordinary consumers’ interests. The continuous increase in generation, transmission and distribution has pushed costs up. On the other hand, the people only have limited consumption of electricity. This increases distribution costs. With this increased financial deficit, both subsidies and expenses are being increased. While the government claims extensive development in the sector, they maintain that there has been no development in the sector in the true sense. On the contrary, opportunists made billions of taka in profits from the unscrupulous business of rental and quick rental power plants.
It is to be noted that PM’s Energy Adviser Towfiq-e Elahi Chowdhury after the meeting at the PMO on Monday said as a result of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, the energy cost skyrocketed and that is why there was no alternative to load-shedding. Sources at the Bangladesh Power Development Board said the country has a capacity to produce 22,348MW. Of it, around 52 per cent comes from gas-based power plants, 27 per cent from furnace oil-based plants, 5.86 per cent from diesel-based, 8.03 percent from coal-based plants and the rest from hydro, solar and import. Since the government decided to stop the import of liquefied natural gas from the international spot market at a high price, there were shortfalls in power generation. Since June 30, the country started load shedding to meet the shortfalls.
About the development of the gas sector, energy experts said the government had taken alarming steps in the interests of certain individuals and groups. It has spent billions of public funds on developing gas fields, but did not develop capacity. BAPEX explored the gas fields, but extraction was given to foreign companies. Although BAPEX explored the Bhola gas field, it was handed over to a Russian company. And now an agreement has been signed to give them the rights to gas extraction from all the inland and offshore fields. According to most experts, Bangladesh hastily decided to import LNG from abroad before exploring its domestic options. Mentionable, the government had made a big deal of winning maritime disputes against Myanmar and India in 2012 and 2014, respectively. But the government has failed to explore the blue sector, and there appears to be no significant movement in that direction either.
We think the government should prioritise domestic natural gas exploration over imported LNG. Usage of renewable energy should be prioritised in electricity production and rental and quick rental plants should be phased out in a short period.
