Amid the sweltering heat, first working day starts with 966 MW of load shedding

Amid the summer's sweltering heat, the week's first working day started with 966 MW of load shedding.

A 'very severe' heatwave has gripped parts of Bangladesh, with maximum temperatures ranging from 40 degrees Celsius to over 42 degrees Celsius in some areas.

The National Load Dispatch Centre (NLDC) at the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) data shows, a total of 966 MW of load shedding was recorded at 1am on Sunday.

Officials said rural areas have been experiencing the power outages mostly as the government has been pursuing a policy to avert the power cut in urban areas, mainly the capital Dhaka and large cities.

Both the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and PGCB forecast shows that the country's highest electricity demand will be 15,000 MW in the day peak hours while it will go up to 16,200 MW in the evening peak hours.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid recently said that the electricity demand may cross 17,000 MW this summer.

Highest evening peak hours' power generation was 15,358 MW on Saturday, as this was a weekly holiday, while the day's peak period generation was 13,325 MW.

The NLDC data also shows that the extent of load shedding was decreasing to 387 MW at 12pm and again took a U-turn with increasing the power shortage.

The load shedding was recorded at 418 MW while the filing of this report at 3pm.

Interestingly, in regard to the load shedding, a big difference was found in the official data of the BPDB and the PGCB.

The BPDB data shows that the country experienced highest 374 MW of load shedding on Saturday while the evening peak demand was recorded at 15,053 MW.

Of the total load shedding, Dhaka region experienced only 40 MW load shedding, Cumilla 84 MW, Mymensingh 200 MW and Rangpur only 50 MW while Sylhet, Barisal, Chattagram, Khulna and Rajshahi experienced no load shedding.

But the PGCB record shows that the entire country experienced 644 MW which is about double of the figure shown by the BPDB.

No official from BPDB was willing to comment on the matter when attention was drawn to it.

Meanwhile, state-owned Petrobangla official data shows that the gas production increased to 3,006.7 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) which is the highest in recent days.

Recently, recently the gas production witnessed a big fall in gas production and the highest supply was recorded at 2,300 MMCFD last week.

Petrobangla officials said both the LNG terminals are now operating in the  full swing with supply over 1,000 MMCFD while Chevron-operated Bibiyana gas field is also back to the production which also supplied over 1,000 MMCFD against its capacity of 1,200 MMCFD.

As a result, gas supply witnessed a good improvement across the country, said an official of the Petrobangla.