Cross-border power trade unlikely to start before Nov

City Desk :
Despite an understanding among Bangladesh, Nepal and India, state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) still cannot import electricity from the Himalayan nation.

On August 28 this year, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid had said that import of hydropower from Nepal was almost final, reports UNB.

It seems unlikely that the power trade will happen before November.

That means, Bangladesh will not get the opportunity to export its surplus electricity to Nepal during peak demand season in winter in the Himalayan nation.

Electricity demand decreases during winter in Bangladesh while it increases in Nepal.

According to official sources, after a long discussion at political and bureaucratic levels among the countries, India finally agreed to allow Bangladesh to initially import 40 MW electricity from Nepal.

The import was supposed to start between August and September 2023, but negotiation on tariff remained incomplete.

Sources said the decision to start the import of 40 MW power from Nepal was finalised in a two-day meeting of the joint steering committee (JSC) and joint working committee (JWC) on Bangladesh-Nepal power and energy sector cooperation on May 14-15 this year at Patuakhali in Bangladesh.

Ahead of the meeting, Nepalese Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud visited Dhaka and held a meeting with Bangladeshi public and private sector officials where he urged them to invest in the hydropower sector in the Himalayan nation, holding about 60,000 MW of clean energy potentials.

After the meeting at Nepalese Embassy in Dhaka, Saud had told UNB that he was expecting all issues to be resolved during the Nepalese prime minister’s visit to India – to facilitate Nepal’s export of electricity to Bangladesh.