Bangladesh is likely to achieve 100 percent electrification in the country as only 3 percent population remained without power now. Presently, 97 percent of the total population of about 165 million is connected to the central power grid system.

A report in Dhaka Tribune said the government had already identified some off-grid pockets and supported any private initiatives to install alternative energy sources like home solar systems. The process is likely to be completed by the year-end.

Presently, the installed power generation capacity in Bangladesh is now well in excess of 23,000 megawatts (MW). Some experts, however, cautioned the government over the state bearing high costs of “idle power” due to a mismatch between low demand and high electricity generation capacity, subsidies, and a rising power tariff. 

The country can rationalize the power tariff and do away with the subsidy burden by projecting electricity demand and generation more pragmatically, suggested Ahsan Mansur, who is the executive director of the independent think tank Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh.

 Another expert, Professor Mohammad Tamim, said that there were seasonal variations in power demand and people consumed some 3,000-3,500 MW more electricity in summer than in winter in Bangladesh. As a result, the installed power capacity should be somewhat higher than the average daily requirement.

“There were 28 outages a week on average, there were fluctuations and too much load shedding back then,” he recalled from a previous study.