Anisul Islam Noor :The government plans to build more oil run power plants, because proposed coal based power plant will not come to generation until 2025, power ministry sources said.Meanwhile the country’s energy consumption has been increasing by 12 percent every year since 2010. Oil fired power plant creates pressure on price despite the fact there is no alternative, ministry sources added.Though the government has pledged for setting up eight coal based power plants within 2017 through private and public private ownership, not a single one has so far seen the light of the day. Land acquiring and fund management have yet not started in five projects. Land development and equipment import will take three to five years for setting up coal based power plant, expert said.The government signed deals with the Orion Group and some other local farm in 2011, 2012 and 2013.Of them, the local private firm Orion group was supposed to build three 1,088MW coal-based power plants, another two 1450MW power plants under the government initiative while three more 7960MW plants as joint-venture. The government planned to install one of the plants at Mawa in Munshiganj with a capacity of 522MW while two others with the total capacity of 566MW in Khulna region. There is already a 250MW government-run coal based power plant at Barapukuria in Dinajpur. Coal for this power plant is supplied from Barapukuria Coal Mining Company Limited. Adjacent to the Barapukuria Power Plant, another 250MW plant of the Power Development Board was supposed to be set up. Sites were also chosen for a 1200MW power plant of the state-owned Coal Power Generation Company Limited with loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at Matarbari in Cox’s Bazar. The government also initiated to set up a 1320MW coal-fired plants at Rampal with the National Thermal Power Corporation of India and another 1320MW plant in Chittagong in joint venture. These power plants were expected to start production between March 2015 and 2017. Under joint venture, Moheskhali in Cox-Bazar was selected for another coal-fired power plant with the capacity of generating 5320MW of electricity. The date has not been finalised to start production of this plant. “Power plant depending on imported coal is possible but it requires proper planning,” Professor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Ijaz Hossain said. He stressed the need for monitoring the implementation of power plant as mere plans would not yield any results. He said, delayed planning, non-availability of finance and implementation complexities had caused the setback resulting in a major failure of the ruling alliance. “We have managed our funds. We are now filing the earth for the project sites. After finishing this, we will start construction,” Orion Group spokesman Chowdhury Khaled Masud said. “Except for the PDB-initiated power plant, the rest will be run by imported coals. It may take more time to start coal-based power plants as it requires infrastructure to import coal,” Power Development Board Chairman Engineer Khandker Maksudul Hassan said.
