The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has lined up a total of 51 power plants, having a total generation capacity of about 3,990MW, for retirement by 2025.
According to the Annual Report 2021 of BPDB, the state-owned principal organization in the power sector, the retirement schedule includes 15 plants from the public sector and 36 from the private sector.
The document reveals that, of the 51 power plants, some 12 plants with total capacity of 1,154MW will be put on retirement in 2021-22, 14 plants of 890MW in 2022-23, 22 plants of total 1,770MW capacity in 2023-24, and three plants, having 167MW capacity, are going to be retired in 2024-25 fiscal year.
The BPDB data shows that, of planned 12 power plants (1,145MW) retiring in 2021-22, half are from the public sector (659MW) and the remaining half (495MW) from the private sector.
In 2022-23, of the 14 retiring plants of 890MW, three plants (190MW) are in the public sector, while 11 plants (700MW) are from the private sector.
In 2023-24, of the 22 retiring plants of a total 1,770MW, four are from the public sector having 561MW while 18 are from the private sector having capacity of 1,209MW.
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Only three plants, having total capacity of 176MW, will be retiring in 2024-25 of which two, having 125MW, are from the public sector and only one, having 51MW, is from the private sector.
The BPDP data also shows that of the total 51 plants, 33 are gas-fired and the remaining 18 plants are liquid fuel-fired.
About the schedule of the retirement, a senior official of the BPDB said that most of the listed plants of the public sector, installed in 1987-97, are aged 25-35 years.
“These plants have already lost their actual capacity and became very inefficient in terms of production cost,” said an official adding that the private sector plants which are going to retire are mostly rental and quick rental.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamd in a recent webinar said that the government will gradually send the costly rental, quick rental and inefficient liquid-fuel-fired plants to retirement.
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Currently, the country’s installed generation capacity is about 25,514MW while the available generation is about 13,000MW which shows a huge surplus capacity that remained unutilized.
Many economists and energy experts are critical of such huge surplus capacity as the government has to pay heavily for the capacity of private-sector plants even if the power is not purchased.
BPDB Chairman Delwar Hossain recently admitted that they have to count a loss of Tk16,000 crore for buying electricity at a higher rate and selling it to the public at a lower rate.
To cover up the loss, the BPDP recently submitted a proposal to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC). However, the energy regulator is yet to respond to the BPDB appeal, said a member of the BERC.