Power Distribution Systems

Abstract

Electricity plays a vital role in the socio-economic development and poverty alleviation. It is considered as the driving force of all development activities. To alleviate poverty in the face of resource limitations and high population density, Bangladesh requires an economic growth rate of about 10% p.a. to provide employment to its rapidly growing labor force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture. In order to achieve this growth rate, availability of a reasonably priced and reliable source of electricity is a prerequisite.The power sector in Bangladesh faced numerous problems characterized by lack of supply capacity, frequent power cuts, unacceptable quality of supply, and poor financial and operational performance of the sector entities. The customer service is not praiseworthy. There have been a number of reforms in the power sector in Bangladesh since her independence, but most of these reforms failed to bring desired improvements in the power sector. The most pressing problem in the power sector has been with the distribution system, which is characterized by heavy system loss and poor collection performance; however, the distribution system seldom got the priority in reform initiatives.