Around 16,500 more megawatts of electricity will be added to the national grid by 2024.
To this end, 31 power plants are under construction and they are at different stages. Besides, some 1496 MW of electricity will be imported during this period, according to the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).
A Power Division official said the government is working to meet the growing demand of electricity across the country.
Currently, 34 power plants with a capacity of 16059 MW of electricity are being constructed. Of these, 15 with generating capacity of 2,034 MW will start operation by this year, 4261 MW power from eight plants will be generated next year.
On the other hand, 4509 MW power from five plants will be generated by 2023 and 3600MW from two power plants will be added to the national grid by 2024.
According to BPDB, the main construction work of ten power plants with a capacity of 4,288 MW is underway in the public sector. Of these, some 40 to 98 percent work of six power plants has already been done.
These are-Ghorashal unit-3 (98 percent), Ghorashal unit-4 (94 percent), Mirershorai 160MW (97 percent), Ashuganj 400 MW combined cycle power plant (76 percent), Khulna-330MW dual fuel (60 percent) and Matarbari-1200 MW (40 percent). However, a two MW- wind power plant in Sirajganj is now running on a test basis, which will start commercial operation soon. Besides, two percent to 33 percent work has been completed on three more power plants, which are Saidpur-150MW (6%), Sreepur-150MW (2%) and Rupsha-880MW (33%).
However, the primary work of the Mymensingh 360 MW power plant is going on.
On the other hand, a total of 3 power plants with a total capacity of 3731MW are now being constructed under public-private initiatives. The construction work in progress of the power plants are- Rampal-1320 MW coal power plant (65 percent), Patuakhali-1320MW (30%) and Payra, Patuakhali-1200-1320MW power plant (20%).
On the other hand, a total of 18 power plants with a total capacity of 4483MW are now under construction at private initiatives. The government will purchase electricity from the power plants. Out of the power plants, the construction work has already been done from 50 to 98 percent of six power plants, which are- Bhola 220MW (98%), Kanchon, Narayanganj 55MW (85 percent), Chandpur 115MW (90%), Thakurgaon 115MW (77 percent), Barishal 307MW (50 percent) and Chattogram-1224 MW (73 percent). The other power plants working progress are- Meghnaghat-718 MW (26 percent), Meghnaghat-583 MW (20 percent), Meghnaghat-583 MW (18 percent), Keraniganj-100 MW (3 percent) and Cox’s Bazar-60 MW (22 percent) wind power plant. Along with this, the construction work of seven more renewable energy based power plants is in different stages.
The government is working to import 1496MW more electricity from Adani group of Jharkhand in India by June 2022. At present its work progress is 65 percent.
On the other hand, the country’s first nuclear power plant is now under construction at Rooppur in Pabna. Construction work of the power plant with two units, with the total capacity of 2,400MW is going on fast. It would produce and be added to the national grid by 2024.
When the Awami League-led government assumed office in 2009, the average power demand at the time was about 6,000MW while power generation capacity of the country was less than 5000 MW. Eight to ten hours load-shedding in summer days was causing unbearable miseries.
Bangladesh has now attained the capacity to generate 22,023 megawatts of electricity, including renewable energy and imported power. Now 99 percent of the people have access to electricity. It is expected that every house will get power supply by this year.
In response to the slogan of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on electricity for all households, the government has set a target to generate 24,000 megawatts electricity by 2021, 40,000 megawatts by 2030, and 60,000 megawatts by 2041.
