Despite the current government’s commitment to install at least 22 coal-based power plants in the country, construction work on these projects has thus far largely been limited to contract signing, laying of foundation stones and planning.
With little or no visible progress at the project sites, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday laid the foundation stones for seven coal-fired power plants at the Bangabandhu International Convention Centre in the capital
Including these seven, a total of eight coal-fired power plants have had their foundation stones laid in conference rooms, rather than at the actual locations. The foundation stone for Bagerhat’s 1320MW coal-fired Rampal power plant was laid in Kushtia’s Bheramara back in October.
The government had pledged to install the 22 coal-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 16,439MW under the government, joint-venture and independent power producer (IPP) initiative.
Under the IPP initiative, local firm Orion Group was supposed to build five coal-based power plants with a total capacity of 2,351MW while S Alam Group was for the first time to build two plants with a combined capacity of 888MW.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory (BMTF) Limited, a state-owned company under the management of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, was also supposed to build a 600MW plant. Fazle Rahman Power was supposed to build a 600MW station while Chittagong Power Company Limited (An Enterprise of BSRM) was supposed to build a 150MW plant.
Under the government’s initiative, seven power plants with a capacity of 5490MW and another four plants producing 5040MW were supposed to be constructed on a government to government (G to G) basis while a 1320mw plant was to be built in a joint-venture.
All these plants are supposed to begin producing power between 2015 and 2020.
Currently, the 250MW Barapukuria thermal power plant in Dinajpur is the only operational government-run coal-based power plant. Coal for this plant is supplied by the Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited.
At present, PDB buys each unit of electricity for less than Tk2 from gas-based plants, and for Tk5.50 from coal-based plants, however, per unit cost of electricity from a plant run on diesel or furnace oil is Tk14-Tk17.
If the proposed and under construction plants start generating electricity, the price will come down significantly as the prices of electricity from these plants would be Tk4 to Tk7 per unit.
Currently daily power production in the country is 6,000MW against a demand of 7,000MW.
“It takes time as the power plants will be set up depending on imported coal, which is a challenging job,” Professor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) Ijaz Hossain told The Dhaka Tribune.
He said delayed planning, non-availability of finance and implementation complexities have caused the setback, resulting in a major failure of the ruling party.
Meanwhile, Orion Group spokesperson Chowdhury Khaled Masud told the Dhaka Tribune: “We are now working on earth filing at the project sites. After finishing this we will start the construction work.”
“Scarcity of land and lack of available funds caused the delay,” Power Development Board Chairman Abdul Wahab Khan told the Dhaka Tribune.
“Establishing a large power plant is a matter of time. Besides, we have not undertaken such mega projects before.”
“We have tried our level best. We hope we will be able to start the main work as we have already laid the foundation stones of some of the plants,” said Power Division Secretary Monowar Islam.
The government has a target to generate around 20,000MW of electricity from coal-based power projects by 2030.