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Gas crisis leads Titas to ask industries for replacing old boilers, furnace for energy efficiency
Sharier Khan
Several shops at Moghbazar in the capital now sell liquefied petroleum gas in cylinders. As parts of Dhaka suffer from acute gas crisis, consumers demand is high these days despite the Tk 1,100 price for one cylinder of gas. Photo: Star
The Titas Gas company has started working on introducing prepaid meters for all consumers on an urgent basis to stop wastage, increase efficient use of natural gas and end the default billing culture.

Besides, the company has started asking industries using gas-fired old boilers and furnace to either replace them with more energy-efficient boilers and furnaces or switch to alternative fuel within six months.

The energy ministry had earlier asked Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd (TGTDCL) to take up these measures to ensure better use of gas. The ministry was prompted to do so in the wake of acute gas crisis this winter.

A top Titas source says on January 12, the energy ministry in a letter asked Titas to urgently prepare a project to introduce prepaid meters for all kinds of consumers to stop wastage and improve gas supply pressure.

Titas is now setting up a technical committee that will analyse the cost benefits of introducing prepaid meters and submit a report within a short time.

On the move to increase gas use efficiency, Titas has started issuing letters to industries asking them to replace old inefficient boilers and furnaces by June-July. If they can’t replace them, those old equipment should be run with alternate fuel.

“Titas will provide these industries with technical advice and give them demonstrations on how to increase energy efficiency of their old machineries,” comments a high official.

“We’ll also ask owners of gas-fired power generators to use efficient engines,” he adds.

As the country’s biggest gas distribution company, Titas has 14.58 lakh customers. Of them, 14.42 lakh are domestic users, 4,443 industrial customers and the rest represent commercial, CNG stations and bulk consumers (like fertiliser and power plants).

Titas sources say introducing prepaid meters for domestic consumers would most likely to be a costly and huge affair.

However, once the meters are introduced, it would not be possible for customers to continue using gas without paying the bills for months.

Presently, domestic customers owe Titas around Tk 60 crore worth of default bills equivalent to 5.8 months of billing.

“People pay their cable TV bills every month but many of them don’t pay gas bills for months as nobody snaps their connections,” quips a high official.

Presently, domestic consumers daily use 150 million cubic feet (mmcfd) gas, while the country’s total gas consumption is around 2,000 mmcfd.

The home burners have very low energy efficiency and they waste around 65 percent of gas. In addition, many domestic users keep their burners on to save matchsticks.

The prepaid meters might not stop domestic consumers from wasting gas as the price of gas is still too low and the prepaid meters would not increase their monthly bills.

A consumer with double burners now pays Tk 450 per month with the assumption that they use the stoves for eight hours a day and burn 86 metre cubes of gas. The price of gas per metre cube is Tk 5.16.

“With such a rate, gas usage would continue to hover around Tk 450 per month even after introduction of prepaid meters. On the bright side, the customers will not be compelled to pay Tk 450 a month when there is gas supply crisis. They can then think of alternative fuels like LPG or kerosene stoves during the crisis period,” observes an official.

But prepaid meters might have more meaningful effect with commercial and industrial consumers. However, Titas is pondering whether industrial consumers should be brought under prepaid metering as it is not known to be practised elsewhere in the world.

“Some industries waste huge gas. For instance, re-rolling mills and lime and glass factories waste around 80 percent gas. It would be much better if these factories use alternative fuel. But they prefer to use gas because it is very cheap. For example, the cost of gas in an industrial production is only 2.5 percent of the total cost. If they use furnace oil, this cost will increase to 9.25 percent,” says the source.

The few industries also owe Titas more than Tk 105 crore outstanding bills equivalent to 5.8 months billing.

Increasing energy crisis is prompting the government to take up various measures to conserve gas and electricity. These include replacement of old bulbs with energy saving lamps across the country, introduction of Daylight Saving Time (DST), staggering industrial holidays throughout the week to save some gas, keeping CNG stations closed for certain hours during the day, and encouraging use of solar power.

Currently, there is a gas supply shortfall of around 400 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) which causes severe gas crisis across the country. It also affects not just power generation or industrial production but also every household using gas to cook food.