At least five incidents of fire have occurred in the power grid in the current year during the normal situation.
Out of these, the grid line has also been crippled due to fire in storms and natural disasters. But such fire incidents are rare in developed countries. As a result, the risk to power transmission and distribution system is increasing day by day.
Experts said negligence, lack of proper maintenance and inefficiency are causing the fires in the power grid. Proper maintenance and management are a must right now to avert frequent fire accidents at national grid substations, otherwise a big disaster may collapse the national electricity grid.
However, the incidents are not stopping as there are no precedents for proper investigation and punishment of those responsible. Concerned people say that some officials of all the companies under the power division are trying their best to hide the reason of accidents and irregularities.
Energy expert BD Rahmatullah told Bangladesh Post ‘there are many reasons for such incidents. The first reason is design error. If there are design errors in any system, they don’t create problems initially, but after a certain time, fires break out due to the faulty design.
The second reason is that the relay circuit breaker and relay, used to prevent over current, which if not installed, will get damaged leading to over current flow causing fire incidents. However, if the design is correct, and the relay and breaker are also installed properly, but lack proper maintenance, this may also create problems, as every device has an expiry period. Lack of proper maintenance by responsible persons can also cause problems, coupled with operating of grid lines by unskilled people.’
Power connection remained cut off in Sylhet region due to a fire that broke out at Kumargaon Power Plant in Sylhet Sadar upazila in the morning on Tuesday.
Earlier, a power grid transformer burnt due to fire at Kewatkhali in Mymensingh district on September 8. As a result, four districts of Mymensingh division were disconnected from electricity. Before the power supply restoration, another fire incident occurred in the morning on September 10.
On May 20, a fire broke out at Bheramara PGCB (Power Grid Company of Bangladesh) substation at Kushtia district. However, the PGCB said that the cyclone 'Ampan' caused the disaster. At that time there was no electricity in many areas for about two to three days.
On the afternoon of April 11, a large fire broke out at Rampura Ulan Grid in the capital. There was no electricity in some areas of the capital for several hours.
Dr. Ijaz Hossain Professor at BUET said, "Regular maintenance is essential in all aspects of power distribution and transmission systems. It is unfortunate that accidents are often heard in the case of transmission lines. Our power generation and demand is increasing. So if we don’t take initiative, it may be a disaster in the future. Along with extending the new transmission and distribution lines, the old lines also need to be maintained at regular intervals. We have to monitor whether it is happening regularly.”
He said there is a separate budget for maintenance. The work will be much more dynamic if there is transparency on where and when the money is being spent.
