PM to inaugurate two more private power plants
Currently, the country is capable to produce 20,383 megawatts electricity everyday
In a state of surplus power generation capacity, two more private power plants ─ with a combined capacity of 226 megawatts ─ will be inaugurated on Thursday.
The two private power plants are: Confidence Power Holdings Ltd's Bogura 113 megawatts, and HF Power's Chowmuhani 113 megawatts power plants.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the plants in line with the inauguration of hundred percent electrification programme in 31 Upazilas, 11 grid-sub-stations and six transmission lines, sources at the power development board confirmed.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), the state's lone electricity buyer, will also purchase the electricity from these power plants.
Due to overcapacity and low demand, BPDB is incurring a loss of a large sum of money under the capacity payment to private power plants to keep them idle.
Currently, the country has a capacity to produce 20,383 megawatts of electricity everyday while the demand is hovering between 9,000 to 10,000 megawatts.
Plants with the remaining capacity are sitting idle with no use.
BPDB Chairman Engineer Md Belayet Hossain told The Business Standard that these projects were approved earlier when the country was not power saturated.
"As per the contract, we will have to purchase the electricity from the plants," he said.
The plants were awarded to these private companies on December 11, 2017 with a timeline of 18 months to complete the construction.
However, with a six-month delay, the plants came into operation in December, 2019.
HF Power is a concern of Hosaf Group which already owns four plants under Energyprima Ltd (EPL) with a capacity of 170 megawatts of electricity. With this the total capacity of the plant rose to 283 megawatts.
Brigadier General Md Mohiuddin Siddique, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Hosaf Group told The Business Standard that they had completed the power plant in due time.
"Due to some administrative reasons, the plant was not inaugurated then," said Md Mohiuddin Siddique.
On the other part, Confidence Power Holdings Ltd, a concern of Confidence Group currently hosts five Independent Power Producer (IPP) Plants with a combined capacity of 393.36 megawatts in the Bogura, Rangpur and Chattogram regions of Bangladesh.
All the plants produce Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) fired electricity.
