Energy pie gets bigger

The government's allocation for the power and energy sector has been rising in the last one decade, but the country is still struggling to meet the spiralling demand for energy.

The financial decisions maker of the country, AMA Muhith, yesterday announced to set aside Tk 24,921 crore—5.36 percent of the total budget—for the development of the power and energy sector in 2018-19.

The proposed allocation is 2.72 percent higher than the revised budgetary allocation of Tk 24,260 crore for the outgoing year.

The allocation for the power sector was only Tk 4,310 crore in 2009-10 and Muhith was responsible to materialise that budget.

Things have changed a lot between the two budgets.

In the last 10 years, the number of power plants rose by 4 times to 118, power generation capacity increased by three times to 18,353 megawatt and even the maximum power generation tripled to a record of 10,958MW.

The percentage of population under electricity coverage has also increased to 90 percent from 47 percent, the octogenarian finance minister informed the parliament in his budget speech for 2018-19.

Still, the consumers ranging from industries and power plants to fertiliser factories and households complain of regular outages, particularly during the peak hours.

The amount of gas production hits 2,750 million cubic feet this year, which is much higher than that of 1,744 million cubic feet in 2009.

The government has constructed 2,622 circuit kilometre transmission lines and 174,000 km distribution lines during the period when the system loss of power has also reduced to 11 percent from 16.9 percent.

But an acute gas crisis is still haunting the country.

The gas sector suffers from poor maintenance of the grid and inefficient management of the gas transmission infrastructure.

There is capacity constraint in the transmission and distribution system, which prevents the government to ensure the credible supply of electricity.

The allocation for the energy and mineral resources division went up to Tk 1,820 crore in the proposed annual development programme from Tk 1,346 crore in the revised ADP for 2017-18.

It, however, is lower than that of the original ADP of Tk 2,111 crore in the outgoing fiscal year.

"Policies are more important than allocation because if we don't allocate funds in the productive sectors, the rise in the allocation will not bring the expected result," said M Tamim, a professor of the petroleum and mineral resources engineering at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.

Muhith yesterday talked about the 1,320MW coal-based power plant at Rampal, the 1,200MW coal-based power plant at Matarbari and the 1,320MW coal-based power plant at Payra of Patuakhali.

However, the minister did not say anything when these plants will

start supplying electricity to the national grid.

Prof Tamim said the mega projects in the power sector got momentum in the current term of the government, but the projects need a long time to be implemented.

He thanked the minister for giving more focus on improving and expanding the transmission and distribution systems of the power sector.

Despite being in power in consecutive two terms since 2009, the government has failed to build the required infrastructure to reap the highest benefit from the country's 16,000 megawatt of installed power generation capacity, said Saleque Sufi, former director for operations at state-owned Gas Transmission Company Ltd.

Only a little over 1 trillion cubic feet of new gas could be added to the national grid whereas more than 8 trillion cubic feet of gas was consumed in the 10 years to 2018, Sufi said.

The 3.2 billion tonnes of proven reserve of superior quality coal remains mostly unutilised, he said.

The country found zero progress in exploring the coal resources and the vast untapped petroleum resources in the deep water of the Bay of Bengal, said Sufi, who is now an international energy consultant.

Bangladesh has raised the power generation capacity but found little success in utilising it, said Prof M Shamsul Alam, energy adviser of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh.

The country's gross domestic product has been increasing at around 7 percent but the annual demand for electricity is growing by 10 percent, he said.

He said there is doubt about the expenditure capacity and the quality of work in the power sector.