Bangladesh plans 2000 MW of oil-fired generation in 2011

• 13 years ago (2011-01-12)
• Junior Isles

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The Bangladeshi government has announced it is aiming to add more than 2000 MW of electricity generation to the national grid this year in order to address the ongoing power crisis. Though it admits there would still be some shortfall.

While the government added almost 3000 MW of generation last year, the additional 2000 MW would increase Bangladesh's power generation capacity by almost 50 per cent.
Chairman of the Power Development Board (PDB) Alamgir Kabir said that if all goes well, the level of load shedding would be strikingly low by the end of this year.

He further claimed this additional power generation would not put any pressure on the stretched natural gas supply as most of the new power plants would be powered by oil imports.

Gas has been the primary source of thermal power generation for Bangladesh until now, and its crisis has forced the government to consider new power generation options.

On the negative side the country's oil import cost is expected to shoot up significantly. When all of these new oil-based power plants begin operation they are expected to consume 1.9 million tonnes of diesel and heavy fuel oil a year. This is predicted to almost double the country's petroleum import cost, according to an estimate by the PDB.

In addition, there had been questions of how the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) would be able to store and transport so much petroleum overnight through rail and river systems. Seventy per cent of the fuel is to be transported via the river routes and 30 per cent through the rail system.

BPC has announced funding for improving these sections of transport infrastructure through dredging of the rivers and rolling stock for the rail network. It is hoping the public sector will help out when it comes to storage, supplementing its own capacity.

About half of these new power deals signed last year are rental power projects. These are a short term solution for the government with contract period not exceeding five years. The government chose these as a quick solution to minimise load shedding in the upcoming lean season when power demands will shoot up for the purpose of irrigation.

Of these rental power projects, a few have already launched operations while several have failed to meet deadlines.
“But we are expecting that by April, most of the rental power projects would be able to launch their operations. These will reduce the load shedding during that period,” the PDB chairman added.

By September, the PDB expects to have several hundred MW of base load power generation.