Sustainable power supply crucial for Bangladesh: ICCB

Sustainable and uninterrupted supply of power is of utmost importance for the economic growth as per capita power consumption in Bangladesh is one of the lowest in the world, a leading chamber said yesterday.

The installed power capacity of Bangladesh was only 200 megawatt in 1972, according to the news bulletin of the International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh for the October-December period.

Since 1972, the current power generation has increased to 16,046 MW thanks to favourable government policies, which have attracted private investment and independent power producers, it said. The per capita power consumption in Bangladesh stood at 433-kilowatt hour as of October 2017, one of the lowest in the world.

Though the government has achieved significant success in electricity generation, actual capacity utilisation is only 9,507 MW because of the existing vulnerable and double-digit system loss in the distribution mechanism, ICCB said.

A severe disruption is taking place in industrial production and other economic activities because of the country's failure in adequately managing the load-shedding, it said.

Citing a recent survey, the chamber said power outages result in a loss of industrial output worth $1 billion a year which reduces the GDP growth by about half a percentage point in Bangladesh.

It is estimated that the total transmission and distribution losses amount to one-third of the total generation, the value of which is equal to the $247 million a year, it said.

“Therefore, there is a need for the development of appropriate infrastructure and effective monitoring system to overcome the major hurdle in efficiently delivering power.”

Due to fast-depleting gas reserve and lack of major initiatives to develop local coal, it is becoming difficult to achieve a sustainable local primary energy source.

According to an estimate, Bangladesh would meet 92 percent of its demand with imported fuel by 2030 if local coal is not explored and exploited, the ICCB said.

The generation of electricity in coal-fired power plants would be viable and much cheaper if locally explored quality coal is used as fuel instead of the imported ones, the chamber said.

“Bangladesh should, therefore, go for all-out commercial exploration of coal in the next five years to make the power sector sustainable and vibrant.”