Bangladesh to Open International Bidding for Four Coal-Fired Power Plants Totaling 2,000 Megawatts

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has announced that it will invite bids from international companies for the construction of four new coal-fired power plants. Invitations to bid for the projects are scheduled to be issued by the end of January.

The total power of 2,000 megawatts (MW) across the four projects will assist Bangladesh in establishing the security of the national power supply and will also diversify energy sources in the face of diminishing natural gas reserves.

The BPBD did not specify the investments required for the projects, but using power industry rules of thumb, the estimated cost could be somewhere in the region of $2 billion.

The new coal-fired plants will have capacities of between 300 MW and 600 MW and will be sited near sea coasts and rivers in Chittagong, Khulna and Munshiganj. In the first phase of operation, imported coal will be used as the fuel feed. Once the domestic coal mining sector has developed the required production capacity, local coal will replace the imported supplies.

A BPDB spokesperson said that the electricity tariff applied to the four new coal-fired plants will be lower than the current tariffs of oil-fired plants.

Currently, the country has one coal-fired plant, a 250-MW plant in the northern Dinajpur region with coal supplies from the Barapukuria mine. Technical problems have prevented the power plant from producing power at full capacity.

A BPDB spokesman said that the electricity tariff applying to the four new coal fired plants will be lower than the current tariffs applying to oil fired plants.

In December 2011, a Chinese joint venture, Orion-Long King, was contracted to construct three coal-fired plants with a total generating capacity of 1,087 MW in a build-own-operate project.

For related information see September 9, 2011, article - Bangladesh to Exploit 3 Billion Ton Coal Reserve to Generate 20 Gigawatts of Power by 2030.

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