Power issue
S.A. Mansoor, Gulshan, Dhaka
Hasnat Khan's write up on the subject (DS:28Feb) is timely. It is not only a short-term, but a permanent solution towards power curtailment. The replacement of filament light bulbs by compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) is being practised not only in Australia, but in South Africa, EU and many states in the US.However, the calculation for power savings shown is flawed. Taking his total lighting load as 156MW, then replacing all the light bulbs by CFLs will not be 156MW; as the CFLs will itself consume about 60MW to provide illumination! The effective savings would be (156-60) 96MW at most. The average retail price of CFL is around Tk 12.50 per watt. The total cost for the CFLs will be Tk 12 crore. In effect we will add 96MW power into the system by spending Tk.12 crore; if all filament bulbs are replaced piecemeal at one go, without waiting for the bulb to fuse at random intervals. This is precisely what has been done in Australia and earlier in South Africa. The moot question is when will Bangladesh do so? ***While the government is asking shopkeepers to shut down their businesses after evening, one of its advisers has given assent to trade bodies' proposal to reduce weekly holiday to one day. Wouldn't one extra workday consume a huge quantity of electricity that could be diverted to meet the power crisis?
Mithu Sarker, Dhanmondi, Dhaka
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