Government power generation comes short in Bangladesh

The government of Bangladesh is continuing to tap entrepreneurs to set up private power plants.

But bying electricity from the private sector is relatively expensive.

The Power Development Board has signed a power purchase agreement with Bhola Electricity Pvt Ltd to buy power from a 218MW plant to be installed in Bhola, making it the 57th contract to install 59 power plants.

Among the plants, 20 with total capacity of 2,718MW will be installed in the public sector while 39 plants with 4,931MW capacity will be set up in the private sector.

PDB will buy electricity from the plant at $2.8384 cents or Tk 2.27 a kilowatt-hour for 22 years. The plant will be run on gas. The production cost of one unit of power by gas-powered plants is less than Tk 2.

The PDB has failed to install a power plant since the middle of the last decade although a gas-field was discovered at Shahbajpur in Bhola with a recoverable reserve of half a trillion cubic feet.

A PDB official told New Age that they had failed to set up a power plant due to fund shortage. But he revealed that the Islamic Development Bank has agreed to lend PDB $180 million for construction of a 225MW power plant in Bhola.

"Soon we will sign an engineering, procurement and construction contract for installation of the plant there,"he announced.

Meanwhile, the Power Division has decided to extend its contract with a rental power producer by two years to buy electricity from its 33 megawatt plant in Bhola.

The decision was taken as the government had failed to install a long-term power plant in Bhola before the contract with the rental power producer expired.

For more.