Staff Reporter :
The government plans to decommission six diesel-fired power plants before the end of 2023, saving around Tk 2,250 crore per year.
Sources said that the combined capacity of these six powerplants belonging to four private companies is nearly 1000 MW.
The diesel-fired power plants facing retirementby year-endare Bangla Track’s 300 MW (Jessore 100 MW and Daudkandi 200 MW), Aggreko’s 200 MW (Awarahati 100 MW and Brahmangaon 100 MW), APR Energy’s Pangaon 300 MW, and Paramount’s Baghabari 200 MW, the sources said.
Besides, a highly-placed source at the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) said “Of these, 800 MW has already gone into retirement in between February and June this year while the remaining 200 MW will be retiring in August.”
Due to this move, the government will able to save around Tk2, 250 crore per year, the source added.
Meanwhile, in FY22, the cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity by diesel was Tk154.11, while for gas-fired power plants it was Tk3.46. It was Tk9.17 for coal-fired plants and Tk22.10 for furnace oil-based plants.
As per the BPDB Annual Report 2021-22, the country’s total grid-connected generation capacity is 22,482 MW, of which diesel-fired plants contributed 1290 MW, or 5.7 percent of the total capacity.
“Under the current situation when both the US dollar
rate and diesel price have increased, the production cost has spiked substantially,” said the top BPDB official.
He informed that all the power purchase agreements (PPAs) were signed on the basis of US dollar rates and payments are made in dollars under an arrangement with the central bank.
So if the existing US dollar rates and current diesel rates are calculated, the production cost of diesel-fired power plants will be much higher in 2023-24 than that of 2021-22.
He noted that in the existing situation, the tariff for each unit of power produced by diesel-fired plants is over Tk172.5.
The current dollar rate is Tk109 while it was Tk85 when the agreements were signed.
Similarly, per litre of diesel price was Tk65 and then increased to Tk80 in November 2021 and Tk114 in August last year, he noted.
Official sources said in the last 5 years, the owners of such costly diesel-fired power plants were paid $1.03 billion or Tk11,281.5 crore.
Appreciating the move for retirement of diesel-fired power plants, eminent energy expert Dr M Tamim said it is “a very good decision”.
“It was just meaningless to keep the costly diesel-fired plants in the production.
The government should retire all the remaining diesel-fired plants as early as possible,”he expressed.