As part of the government’s plan to turn Cox’s Bazar into the country’s biggest energy hub, the Power Development Board (PDB) has decided to construct a 1,400MW coal-fired ultra supercritical thermal power plant at the district’s Maheshkhali upazila.
“We have already invited international tender from reputed firms to construct the new power plant,” PDB Chairman Md Abduhu Ruhulla told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday. The last date for tender submission is July 8 this year.
“It is the first power plant where PDB is going to adopt the latest ultra supercritical technology for setting up coal-based thermal power plants,” he said.
Currently, the 250MW Barapukuria plant is the only coal-fired power plant running on subcritical technology in the country.
“The plant [in Maheshkhali] will reduce carbon emissions, generation costs will be minimised and generation efficiency will be increased,” Abduhu Ruhulla added.
The proposed plant will be set up as a turnkey project, where an organisation or company performs all the activities from design to operational testing, before the project is turned over to another enterprise for operation.
According to the tender document, the selected contractor would have to install the plant on a turnkey basis through providing the services including engineering, design, manufacturing, inspection, testing, supply and delivery of the plant.
The selected contractor would also arrange the required finance for the project and execute it on a turnkey basis.
The eligible company also has to provide $20m in the form of an irrevocable and unconditional bank guarantee issued by any scheduled Bangladeshi bank, or by a foreign bank duly endorsed by a scheduled bank in Bangladesh, payable in favour of the secretary as tender security of the PDB.
The government, through the PDB, plans to set up separate ultra supercritical coal-based thermal power plants with total capacities of 6,000MW in different phases at Maheshkhali, as well as constructing liquefied natural gas (LNG)-based combined cycle power plants of 3,000MW capacities in different phases.
