Two key power plants in Bangladesh have abruptly stopped generation because of a technical fault and a coal shortage linked to adverse weather, cutting about 3,000 megawatts from the national grid and raising fears of renewed load shedding in Dhaka and across the country.
Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood disclosed the risk on Sunday in a statement under Rule 300 in the Jatiya Sangsad. Minister Mahmood did not name the two power plants that have gone offline.
Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood said the two shutdowns were caused by separate problems.
A sudden leak was detected in the boiler tube of one power plant, forcing authorities to halt production to avoid an accident.
Rough conditions in the Bay of Bengal prevented coal from being unloaded from lighter vessels for the other plant. The resulting fuel shortage brought generation at that facility to a complete standstill.
Combined, the two outages knocked nearly 3,000MW off the transmission system, dealing what the minister described as a major blow relative to current demand.
Calling the situation a “national crisis”, Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood said: “This is a national crisis. Let us all work together in unity to overcome this crisis.”
Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood also said he had already discussed the situation with opposition leader Dr Shafiqur Rahman and wanted to confront the emergency with support from all sides.
“Emergency repair work is progressing rapidly, and the sea weather situation is being monitored,” he said. “It is expected that, within the next two days there will be visible improvement in the situation, and if that happens, the extent of load shedding across the country will be reduced significantly.”