Transformer damage in power distribution systems is on the rise raising frequency and duration of power cuts.
Experts blamed poor maintenance and overloading for the increasing rate of transformer damage.
Transformer damage increased by 52.69 per cent in April compared to March, according to a report placed before a monthly coordination meeting with the state minister for power, energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid in the chair at the ministry on May 28.
The number of damaged transformers increased to 6,738 in April from 4,413 units in March, the report said.
It takes several hours in the urban areas and even several days in rural areas to replace a damaged transformer keeping consumers out of power supply, alleged consumers.
Poor maintenance, overloaded power distribution lines, sudden rise in temperature and thunderbolts cause damage to the transformers, said Rural Electrification Board chairman Moin Uddin.
‘Delay in replacing oil and coil in the transformers, which is also a maintenance issue, also causes the damage,’ he said, adding that sometimes absence or malfunction of thunder arresters might cause transformer damage.
Moin said that every Palli Bidyut Samiti of the board tried to replace the damaged transformer in a shortest possible time.
Except for the Power Development Board and newly created Northern Electricity Supply Company, the four other state-run power distribution utilities, experienced the sharp rise in transformer damage, the report showed.
Rural Electrification Board, the country’s largest power distribution utility, had the highest 6,644 damaged transformers in April, 52.60 per cent up from the 4,354 in March.
The number of damaged transformers increased to 20 in April from 12 in March in the distribution area of Dhaka Electric Supply Company, 46 in April from 26 in March in the area of Dhaka Power Distribution Company and 19 in April from 10 in March in West Zone Power Distribution Company, according to the report.
The number of damaged transformers, however, decreased in Powr Development Board’s distribution areas in April while the number remained unchanged in Northern Electricity Supply Company area.
DESCO managing director Md Shahid Sarwar said that they usually sent portable transformer as a backup power supply facility until a new transformer replaced the damaged one.
People of different areas in Dhaka, however, alleged that it took three to six hours to resume power supply after a transformer failure.
There are 894,956 units of power distribution transformers across the country –REB 848,683, PDB 15,299, DPDC 11,259, DESCO 6,467, NESCO 6,933 and WZPDCO 6,315.
In April, the number of overloaded transformers was 14,705 in REB, 653 in PDB, 230 in NESCO, 57 in WZPDCO, 219 in DPDC and 7 in DESCO areas.
A transformer in power distribution line goes overloaded when the demand for power exceeds its power supply capacity.
REB chairman said that the number of overloaded transformers decreased in April compared to that in March.
He promised that the rate of transformer damage would decrease after installation of 70,000 transformers reducing overloading in the rural power distribution areas.
Source: New Age
