The government has formed high powered committee to investigate the cause behind the Saturday’s blackout in greater Barishal and Khulna.
According to an office order issued on April 27, 2025, the following officials have been inducted to the committee:
Abdul Hasib Chowdhury, Pro Vice-Chancellor, BUET is Convener.
Members are- Dr. Md. Ahsan, Professor, Mechanical Engineering Division of BUET, Md. Firoz Shah, Additional Divisional Commissioner (Revenue), Divisional Commissioner’s Office of Khulna, Md. Shahidul Islam, Member (P& D), Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board, Md. Abdur Majid, Chief Engineer (Operations), WZPDCL, Md. Atikur Rahman, Superintendent Engineer (System Protection & Testing Commissioning Cell, Bangladesh Bidyut Unnayan Board, Dhaka, Md Faizul Kabir, Chief Engineer, Transmission 1, PGB PLC, and Md Mazharul Islam, Senior Assistant Secretary, Renewable Energy Branch 1, Power Division.
The committee’s responsibilities include:
Investigating the reasons behind the power disruption,
Identifying individuals or institutions responsible for the incident,
Recommending preventive measures,
Submitting a detailed report to the authorities within seven working days.
The committee has also been authorized to co-opt any necessary members and to gather information from relevant agencies as required for the investigation. The office order was signed by Md. Solaiman, Deputy Secretary, Power Division.
Power outage in 10 districts of Khuna and Barishal Regions
On April 26, 2025, the power situation in the grid network was normal. At 17:00 hours, the total generation was 14520 MW, and the system frequency was 50.4 Hz.
Under these circumstances, at 17:45 hours on Saturday, a fault occurred in the 400kV Aminbazar-Gopalganj double circuit line, leading to a temporary power outage in 10 districts associated with the Jashore, Benapole, and Noapara substations of the Khulna and Barishal regions.
However, the 230kV Ishwardi-Bheramara-Jhenaidah link remained operational, so the Bheramara, Kushtia, Magura, Narail, and Chuadanga substations connected at the 230kV and 132kV levels remained active. Utilizing this 230kV link, the NLDC of Power Grid and other relevant departments efficiently restored power to the Jashore, Benapole, and Noapara substations through immediate efforts. Consequently, the power supply situation in the mentioned areas began to normalize.
On the other hand, due to the fault in the 400kV Aminbazar-Gopalganj double circuit line, 1320 MW BCPCL (Payra), 1320 MW RNPL, 307 MW Barishal Electric, 1320 MW Rampal, 225 MW Bhola New Power, and 225 MW Bhola power plants, as well as the 500 MW HVDC Block-2, tripped, resulting in a power disruption of approximately 2277 MW.
At 18:19 hours, Circuit-1 of the 400kV Aminbazar-Gopalganj line was energized, and at 18:25 hours, Circuit-2 was energized, restoring the 400kV Aminbazar-Gopalganj-Amtali link.
In this situation, as a result of obtaining synchronizing power, Unit-1 of the 1320 MW BCPCL (Payra) power plant was synchronized at 19:01 hours, and Unit-2 was synchronized at 19:08 hours. By 19:30 hours, the power situation in the mentioned regions started to normalize.
Gradually, as other power plants were synchronized with the grid network, the power situation became completely normal by 21:00 hours.
Primary Investigation of the Outage
Initially, fault records of the protective relays of the 400kV Aminbazar-Gopalganj double circuit line were collected from the 400/230/132kV Aminbazar and 400/230/132kV Gopalganj substations, along with other information. Preliminary analysis of the collected data indicates that a transient short-circuit occurred between the blue phase of Circuit-1 and the red phase of Circuit-2, approximately 65 km away from the Aminbazar substation and approximately 25 km away from the Gopalganj substation.
Due to the automatic operation of the protective relays used for system protection at both ends of the two circuits, the associated power plants tripped. To investigate the detailed technical reasons for the above information, two separate committees have already been formed by the Power Division and the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB).
Once the committee reports are available, the detailed reasons for the tripping, along with other related aspects of the power outage, will be clearly under