Energy Bangla

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid on Wednesday announced that shops and markets will get uninterrupted electricity from the national grid up to 10:00pm every day till the 15th of Ramadan as there is no electricity shortage in the country.
Following a meeting with the owners of shops and markets at Biduyt Bhaban in the city, the State Minister said, “As the power generation scenario is satisfactory we will continue to supply electricity to all shopping malls in the city up to 10:00pm from the first day of Holy Ramadan, however, we have some bottlenecks in our distribution and transmission side, so there will be some difficulties in supplying electricity in particular areas, especially in overloaded areas but the overall situation will be satisfactory.”
The shops owners will be getting uninterrupted electricity during the Holy Ramadan after seven years.  Earlier, the power division had asked shops and markets to pull down their shutters after 8:00pm up to 10th Ramadan.
It is estimated that the demand for power during Ramadan will stand at 9,000MW this year. If the BPDB gets around 1,150 mmcf gas per day and if there be no major shutdowns then around 8,300 MW of electricity can be produce.
“If there be no ‘heat-waves’ then the load situation will be very comfortable for us,” a senior official said.
During the meeting, the Power Development officials said an estimated 8,500MW of electricity will be required for peak hours in Ramadan this year, about 1,000 MW up from that in 2014, the official said. The capacity in power transmission and distribution, however, has not increased in line with the demand that grew over past one year, he added.
Nasrul Hamid also said that there will be no load shedding during Sehri, Iftar and Tarabih prayer in the month of Ramadan.
“We’ve formed monitoring committees in upazilas, districts and divisions. We’ve asked them to monitor the entire task,” the State Minister said.
He directed the BPC chairman to continue supply of diesel and furnace oil to all public and private power generating entities to ensure fuel supply to liquid fuel-based power plants.
When asked, a Power Development Board official said, ‘This year there would not be any load shedding for shortage of power generation because we are ready to generate electricity commensurate with the demand.’