Energy Bangla

The investigation committee was formed to probe the massive blackout that switched the country off on Saturday
The investigation committee charged with determining the factors that caused Saturday’s countrywide power failure will visit Bheramara HVDC grid sub-station today, sources said. Some officials believe the site is crucial to explaining the unexpected grid failure.
“We will visit the High Voltage Direct Current grid sub-station at Bheramara in Kushtia and collect data on the incidents of last Saturday,” Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) Managing Director Nazrul Hasan, also an investigation committee member, told.
The investigation committee was formed to probe the massive blackout that switched the country off on Saturday.
The Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources formed the eight-member probe committee headed by additional secretary Ahmed Kaikaus.
The duty of operating and maintaining the HVDC grid sub-station falls to the state-run Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB).
“We yesterday collected from the PGCB the total list of power plants which were operative before the collapse, reasons for low system frequency and the status of auxiliary power at each power plant,” Mohammad Hossain, director general of the Power Cell and member secretary of the investigation committee, told. The committee will also collect information from the Indian side of the cross-border power transmission line, he said.
Media outlets speculated that the reason for the outage was a malfunction on the Indian side of the India-Bangladesh power transmission line that links up with the Behramara HVDC grid sub-station.“We yesterday visited the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC) in Aftab Nagar in the capital to determine if NLDC operations, including staff readiness, was functioning properly, the Power Cell director general said.
“We will also look at the reason why power synchronization did not occur between the power plants when the national grid collapsed,” Hossain added.
An official of PGCB, asking to remain anonymous, said he had learned of two possible reasons for the collapse, a fault at the sub-station and the inability of NLDC officials, responsible for electricity transmission across the country, to adequately respond to the problem. The official said: “If the NLDC officials did their jobs correctly, such a major shut down would probably not have taken place.”