State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said on Thursday, 6 October that it would take a few more days to sort out the exact reasons behind the failure of the national power grid that happened on 4 October, causing much of the country into a blackout for about seven hours.
“Initially it was discovered that when there was a shortage of power created in the east side and surplus in the west side of the county, the transmission system tripped, leading to the grid failure”, he told the news media while briefing at his ministry on Thursday.
State Minister mentioned that the first power plant in Ghorasal station failed following the grid collapse, resulting in a heavy closure of power plants.
But the state minister said no physical damage happened to the grid.
He said an investigation committee of PGCB was working on it while another committee from Power Division would also be formed soon, expecting that the report by the PGCB committee will come in 7 days.
Responding to a question, he referred to remarks by BNP leader Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, a BNP leader and former state minister for power, and said it would be investigated if the grid failure was sabotage.
He said how Iqbal Mahmud knows that such incidents of grid failure would take place in the forthcoming too.
Nasrul Hamid, hence, admitted that the development of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) did not take place as it was expected due to Covid-19 pandemic.
“We could not implement many PGCB projects due to the Covid-19 situation. We have been two years behind the schedule of the implementation”, he said, adding that a project for equipment of the PGCB has been undertaken.
“We hope, within the next two years we will be able to complete the automation project and then chances of such grid failure will be reduced,” he added.
