‘The country has been receiving 30-50 MW of electricity less due to subsidiary consumption at the generating station and losses during transmission’ The government is going to purchase 30-50 MW of electricity from an Indian private company at a cost of around Tk280 crore to meet the demand in the country. A power division proposal for importing power from an Indian firm, which was placed before the cabinet committee on public purchase, was approved yesterday. The meeting presided over by Finance Minister AMA Muhith also approved another proposal for appointing a Singapore-based Sembcorp Utilities Pte Ltd to set up a 400MW dual fuel Independent Power Project (IPP) in Sirajganj district. The government had earlier selected the Singaporean firm through an unsolicited deal under a joint venture with the North-West Power Generation Company of Bangladesh. According to the power division proposal, the country has been importing 500MW of electricity from India since October 2013 through grid inter-connectivity between Bohorompur in India and Bheramara in Bangladesh. Bangladesh received 250 MW of electricity through NVVN and the remaining 250 MW from Power Trading Company India Ltd (PTC), according to the agreement. The country has been receiving 30-50 MW of electricity less due to subsidiary consumption at the generating station and losses during transmission, said the power division in its proposal. Later on, a decision was made last year at the seventh meeting of the joint steering committee, which was formed under the agreement signed between Bangladesh and India on electricity cooperation since 2010, to purchase 30-50 MW more electricity from the Indian private sector. According to the Power division proposal, the average charge of the agent will be around Tk0.05 per kWh and the lowest cost will be over Tk1crore while the highest will be over Tk2 crore for a year for the import of 30-50 MW of electricity from India. Bangladesh Power Development Board(BPDB) will arrange limited scale tendering between two Indian power generation firms- NVVN and Power Trading Corporation of India Limited (PTC). After floating a tender, the Indian firm will appoint a trading agent which will purchase power form the Indian open market and supply to Bangladesh only for a year. As per proposal of Independent Power Project (IPP) in Sirajganj,BPDB will purchase power from the plant at a price of Tk3.19 per unit, if it was run by the natural gas while the rate will be Tk13.57, if it was run by HSD, in the next 22 years. As per the proposal, the company will have to provide 282MW electricity to the national grid within two years of agreement signing while it will be 400MW within three years. Per unit price of electricity from the proposed 400MW IPP is lower among the two other Independent Power Plants-Summit Megnaghat 355MW combined cycle IPP power plant, which has currently started simple cycle operation while Lanco 367MW at Sirgjaganjthat was previously canceled, reads the proposal.The electricity demand is increasing by 10-12% every year in Bangladesh. As per the Power System Master Plan 2010, the country will require 24,000 MW electricity from 2021.
