Anisul Islam Noor :
The government plans to generate more electricity from oil run power plants capitalising the fall of the crude oil price by about 53 percent in the international markets, said official of the Ministry of Power and Mineral Resources.
In the recent days, 28 percent of the country’s total electricity is generated from oil run power plants, while it was about 17 percent a year ago.
Yet, the government plans to get more electricity from the oil run plants since the oil price has slumped by more than 50 percent, said State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid Bipu.
“If the current rate of crude oil remains stable or falls further, we shall exploit it, said the minister said.
“As per the current rate at the international market, the diesel price should be Tk 26 per litre. But we are buying it at Tk 60 from the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) for which the electricity generation rate is high whereas the BPC is making huge profit” , Shafiqul Haque, an Engineer of a private power plant located at Narayanganj said. The initiative to set up more oil run power plants will be a good decision if oil supply is ensured at lower rate, he said.
According to the Power Development Board (PDB), the cost of per kilowatt electricity (or a unit) now stands at Tk 6.10. But it is sold to various distributors like DESCO at the rate of Tk 4.7 per unit. The PDB is asking the Energy Regulator Commission to raise the price to Tk 5.55 per unit to reduce the subsidy to Tk 4,000 crore annually to be borne by the government as subsidy.
Following the PDB’s proposal, the power distributors suggested the average retail price raise the rate to Tk 7.47 per unit from the present average rate Tk 6.10 unit.
For the past few years, the government has been giving huge subsidy in this sector. But the situation has now changed with the fall of oil price by more than 53 percent, said Professor Ijaj Hossain, an energy expert of BUET
Opposing more oil run power plants, Economist Anu Mohammad said: “Electricity price will not be reduced unless the government sets up more gas-based power plants by reducing the dependency on oil.”
Use of gas, the country’s cheapest primary fuel, in power generation has been reduced significantly because the government could not increase gas supplies to power plants, he said.
Years ago, natural gas fired more than 90 percent power plants in the country. In 2011-12, its share dropped to 77 percent and in 2013-14 it plummeted to 62 percent, he mentioned.
