A fuel shortage linked to the ongoing Iran–Israel conflict has forced Bangladesh to impose up to 300MW of electricity load-shedding during daytime hours, a senior power official said.
However, consumers in rural areas say outages have been significantly higher since the conflict began.
“We have received only 800–825 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of natural gas in March 2026, which allows us to produce a maximum of 4,000–4,500MW of electricity from gas-fired plants,” said Rezaul Karim, chairman of the Bangladesh Power Development Board, speaking to Just Energy News on Friday.
By comparison, the country received an average of 1,012 mmcfd of natural gas during the same period in 2025, he said.
As a result, electricity generation from gas-fired plants has dropped to about 4,700MW, despite an installed capacity of 12,472MW.
To meet rising summer demand, authorities have increased generation from coal-fired plants to 4,500–4,700MW, against a capacity of 6,273MW.
“We are trying to generate the maximum possible electricity from coal-fired plants because of the natural gas shortfall,” Mr Karim said.
Several residential areas in greater Narayanganj, Narsingdi and Ashuganj also experienced severe outages on Friday during both peak and off-peak hours after the Ashuganj–Bhulta grid line collapsed at around 2:00pm.
The failure triggered the sudden shutdown of 1,527MW of generation capacity at the Ashuganj power station, one of the country’s largest and most reliable power sources.
“We are repairing the line and hope to complete the work tomorrow,” a power sector official said, adding that efforts were under way to restore supply.
Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Independent Power Producers’ Association has expressed concern over fuel reserves for 5,641MW of furnace-oil-fired private power plants.
“We met with the power minister and the state minister for power and energy to present the current situation of heavy fuel oil stocks in the private sector,” said Imran Karim, a former president of the association.
Officials at the Bangladesh Power Development Board said they were currently seeking around 2,000MW of electricity from private producers to meet demand.
“We are trying our best to ensure there is no load-shedding during the peak hours at sehri and iftar during the holy month of Ramadan,” Mr Karim said.
“However, we are being forced to impose 200–300MW of load-shedding during daytime hours due to the fuel crisis.”
He added that additional outages could occur in some areas because of technical faults.
BPDB officials warned that further load-shedding could be introduced after Ramadan if the conflict continues, as authorities seek to reduce production costs and limit subsidies in the power sector.
he BPDB’s electricity generation now stands at 14,565MW against an installed capacity of 28,494MW. The BPDB had projected generation of 16,500MW for the same period, official data showned.