State-owned Electricity Generation Company of Bangladesh Ltd (EGCB), is going to set up a 50 MW solar power plant at Sonagazi of Feni district as part of its mid-term plan to generate a sizable portion of power from renewable sources.
Fifteen companies have already submitted bids for the work, an official said.
In parallel, the government is also trying to get some power utilizing wind sources. Even though the wind power generation capacity is only 2.9MW, a 30MW wind power plant is being set up in Sonagazi as well.
According to EGCB, the solar power plant, the largest so far in the public sector, was approved by the government on September 7, 2018. It is expected that the power plant will start generation by June 2021. The World Bank, Bangladesh government and EGCB will bear the project cost. It has already secured US$ 74 million from the World Bank to finance the project.
According to officials, around 40 private companies had procured bid documents, but 15 of them submitted bids on the last date, June 15.
Out of 15 companies, the lone Indian company that submitted the documents is Larsen & Toubro Limited. Others are Chinese companies, which are Trina- HYDC joint venture, CETC International Co Ltd, JV of Znshine-CNEEC, AVIC-WSGRI JV, Senyuan YREC JV, Shandong Electric Power Engineering Consulting Institute Corp Ltd (SDEPCI), Gezhouba Group, GCL-DEC Consortium, China Sinogy Electric Engineering Co Ltd, Risen Energy Co Ltd, Zongnan-Sinohydro JV, Shanghai Electric Group, Consortium of Norinco-Int'l and SAC, Sungrow Power Supply Co Ltd.
The Renewable Energy Policy of Bangladesh mandates that 10 percent of electricity is to come from renewable energy sources by 2020. In absolute terms, this means that at least 2000 MW has to be generated from renewable energy sources by 2020. However, until now, around 632MW is being generated from renewable energy.
A senior official of the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (Sreda) told Bangladesh Post, ‘Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that Bangladesh wants to generate 100 percent electricity from renewable sources by 2050. We have already taken various initiatives to promote renewable energy.’
