Two more solar power plants on cards

The government plans to set up two more on-grid solar power plants in Chattogram's Rangunia and Dinajpur's Fulbari as part of its efforts to achieve the target of generating 10% of electricity from renewables by 2025.

The plants are expected to add 70 megawatts of electricity to the national grid. The country's current power generation capacity is 22,608MW with 1.5% or 359MW (on-grid) coming from 9 solar plants.

The Bangladesh Power Development Board made the decision on setting up the two solar plants at its board meeting in the second week of February and floated two separate tenders immediately. Interested candidates have been asked to respond to the tender invitations by 2 April.

"Tenders have been invited even before the finalisation of detailed project plans so that the construction of the plants can be completed fast," Ahmed Zahir Khan, director at the Directorate of Renewable Energy and Research and Development under the board, told The Business Standard.

"Hopefully, we will be able to finalise the project plans, including estimated costs, within a month and commence the projects by June this year," he added.  

The Rangunia plant will be 50MW in capacity on some 149 acres of land owned by the power board, officials said. It will generate 2 lakh units of electricity every day, while the other plant – 20MW in capacity – will be built on 60 acres of land at Barapukuria Coal-Fired Thermal Power Plant Complex at Fulbari to generate 80,000 units of electricity every day.

Earlier in 2020, the Dubai-based Consortium of Metito Utilities Limited expressed its interest in setting up a 55MW solar power plant on the same land at Rangunia, but it backtracked considering the high project costs. Regarding the Fulbari plant, the government began preparations in August last year but the initiative moved slowly owing to the dollar crisis.

The authorities are planning to install solar panels and inverters, which can last 20 years, at both plants. "The average cost of setting up a solar plant is usually Tk8 crore per megawatt. With this calculation, the estimated cost of the Rangunia project will be more than Tk400 crore and that of Fulbari Tk160 crore. Other expenses, including land development, construction of roads, buildings and necessary infrastructure will also be added," a senior power board official, wishing to remain unnamed, told TBS.

Rush for generating 10% of electricity by 2025

The government is moving for the new plants given its determination to achieve its target of generating 10% of electricity from renewables, including solar, hydropower and wind, by 2025.

Currently, the country has a capacity of generating 2% of electricity from renewables, according to the Bangladesh Power Development Board. At least 12% of electricity is needed from renewable sources to attain Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.

Earlier, the government had set targets of producing at least 5% of the total electricity from renewable sources by 2015 and 10% by 2020, but none of them could be achieved yet, according to the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources.

"Bangladesh can generate 20,000MW of green electricity within 2041 by expanding solar power generation facilities," says the "National Solar Energy Roadmap 2021-41" prepared by the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority. Even solar power capacity can be taken to 30,000MW with a proper utilisation of riverside and abandoned lands, it estimated.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly been instructing the authorities concerned to utilise the unused land of the country's existing power plants and the PDB for the development of renewable energy amid a scarcity of land.

In addition to the tenders for the two plants, the Power Development Board has also invited a separate tender for the construction of the 7.6MW solar power plant at the Karnaphuli Hydro Power Plant in Rangamati.

"The government has decided to build solar power plants in different parts of the country [as part of its efforts to achieve a generation of 10% of electricity from renewables]," Planning Commission Member Mohammad Emdad Ullah Mian told TBS. "Several places were visited late last year for this purpose," he added.

Solar power cheaper than some others

The production cost for a unit of electricity is Tk22 on average at diesel-run power plants, Tk10 at LNG-run plants, Tk4-6 at coal-fired plants and Tk12 at furnace oil-run plants, according to the Bangladesh Power Development Board, while the cost is Tk0.3-1 at Kaptai hydropower plant.

"Overall, solar power production costs remain near Tk10 per unit," Ahmed Zahir Khan said.

"The production cost per unit of the 7.4MW solar power plant in Chattogram was about Tk14 in 2019, which is set to fall to Tk8 only thanks to the new higher capacity panels and inverters," an engineer at the Karnaphuli Hydropower Station said.