Anisul Islam Noor :The government has invited tenders from private sector companies for setting up and operates furnace oil-fired 10 power plants with a combined capacity of 1000MW. Dateline for submitting the bids has been fixed by June 29, according to Power Development Board (PDB) officials. These power plants will be set up under the policy for ‘Independent Power Producers (IPP)’ at 10 different locations with 100MW capacity each. The IPPs will be entitled to directly import furnace oil to run their power plants, the officials said, adding that the government has already waived the import duties for private companies and also offered nine per cent handling charge on the import.M Shamsul Alam, an energy adviser to the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), told this reporter that the government is taking the risk of increasing power generation cost which would ultimately pass on the consumers.He said the move is inconsistent with an ideal power generation system as the country has already burdened with the electricity generated by expensive fuel oil-fired power plants.Currently, private companies supply costly electricity from 30 fuel oil-fired plants while the public sector utilities supply electricity from 17 similar plants.A total of 47 fuel oil-fired power plants have a combined capacity of generating approximately 3,550MW, which is more than 30 per cent of the total generation capacity, according to a PDB data.Shamsul Alam said the government is paving ways for private companies to make money by increasing so-called power generation capacity.The IPPs will make money by supplying electricity as well as importing furnace oil, he said, adding the consumers would hardly get the benefit from such moves.The government has so far raised the average retail price of electricity by 69.25 per cent, up from Tk 3.76 per kilowatt-hour or unit to Tk 6.33, in eight phases, between March 2010 and September 2015.Increasing dependence on fuel oil-fired electricity and on private sector pushed the power prices up, said the expert.PDB’s initiative to award 10 contracts to the private sector companies came four years after it had awarded contracts to the private companies to set up, operate and supply electricity from eight furnace oil-fired power plants with combined capacity of over 600MW.The winning companies of the bids, which PDB floated in 2011, have so far failed to start electricity supply from any of the six plants, said the PDB officials.Being instructed from the government, PDB has been extending the timelines for setting up the plants although the companies are bound to set up their power plants in 18 months after signing power sales agreement with PDB, they said.However, PDB Chairman Md Shamsul Hasan Miah denied commenting on the matter.According to a plan which was approved at a meeting on Thursday (May 19), PDB will buy electricity from each of the 10 plants for 15 years.The new power plants will be set up in Chandpur, Chowmuhoni of Noakhali, Feni, Meghnaghat of Narayanganj, Bagerhat, Takurgaon, Rangpur, Bogra, Santahar and Jamalpur.Of the eight previously awarded power plants, four with 100MW capacity each are supposed to be set up at Gabtali, Basila and Keraniganj in Dhaka and Jamalpur while four others with 50MW capacity each were supposed to be set up in Nawabganj, Manikganj, Shatkhira and Bhairab.
