Bangladeshi authorities have started a probe into a nationwide grid failure which led to a blackout on Tuesday, plunging huge parts of the country into darkness.
According to the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh there was an unexpected power outage in the Eastern part of National Grid (Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Comilla, Mymensingh) at about 2.04pm on Tuesday.
PGCB's engineers said they were working hard to figure out what caused the shutdown of the grid.
All the agencies under the electricity department, including PGCB, are trying to combat the situation together, and called on citizens to be patient.
Citing a report by Asian News International, Chief of the investigation body and executive director of the PGCB, Yeakub Elahi Chowdhury said, “we started our probe this morning to identify the possible causes behind the national grid disaster and also the exact point of the incident”.
The PGCB formed a five-member investigation committee, headed by Chowdhury.
According to Dhaka Tribune citing official sources said the investigation committee was given three days to complete the probe.
Power supply was restored in the entire country, starting from the Kalyanpur grid sub-station and then restored power supply to the president's official residence, Bangabhaban, and the prime minister's official residence, Ganabhaban, at 5pm, according to local media.
Electricity supply was restored in other parts of the area, and by 10:30 pm the entire country had electricity, reported Dhaka Tribune.
The International Trade Organisation ITO reported in July that electricity generation capacity has increased significantly over the last decade in Bangladesh, despite poor transmission, distribution infrastructure, inadequate thermal efficiency in a large number of aged power plants as well as a mismatch between the types of energy needed by existing plants and the fuel mix available, citing a report by the ITO.
Private power production units make up approximately half of total installed capacity in Bangladesh, according to the ITO.
Electrical generation capacity has increased from about 5 gigawatts in 2009 to around 25.5 gigawatts in 2022, according to the Bangladeshi government.