The government plans to import 1496 MW more electricity from India by this year. Currently, Bangladesh is importing 1160MW of electricity from India, BPDB official said.
Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) will import the power from India’s Adani group of Jharkhand to meet the growing power demand in Rajshahi and Rangpur region which is the agricultural economic centre of the country and as well as capital Dhaka.
To this end, state-owned Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) is constructing Rahanpur to Monakasha Border 400kV Transmission Line in Chapainawabganj District. Around 95 percent work of the project has already been done.
Saiful Hasan Chowdhury, Director for public relations at the BPDB told Bangladesh Post “Around 80 percent work for import of electricity from India has already been completed. It is expected that around 750MW of electricity will be imported by August next and rest of of the electricity will be added to national grid by December this year.’
According to PGCB, the construction work of 28 kilometer 400 kV Double Circuit Transmission Line has already been completed to import the power. Currently, some minor works related to the project is going on.
When contact Project Director, Md Mizanur Rahman Sarkar told Bangladesh Post ‘Our work is almost done. Commissioning will start soon. After completed of the construction work of the power plant in India, we are fully capable to supply the imported power through the transmission line.’
However, PGCB is constructing another 400 kV Transmission Line from Barapukuria to Kaliakoir in Gazipur via Bogura district to extend High Voltage transmission infrastructure up to northern part of the country for import power in future from India, Nepal and Bhutan. The total length of the transmission line is 260 kilometer, which will be completed by June, 2022.
Sources said Adani Power (Jharkhand) Limited (APJL), a concern of Adani Group is setting up a thermal power plant of 1600 MW (2 X 800 MW) in Godda District of Jharkhand State in India to supply electricity to Bangladesh. The Plant is likely to be inaugurated by the first quarter of the year 2022.
“The COVID-19 has impacted and delayed the schedule of implementation and commissioning of the power project. Company officials are working day and night to complete this.” Adani Power official said.
The work of Adani Godda was started in the year 2017. This under construction power plant is estimated to require around seven million tonnes (Mt) of coal fuel per annum.
The government expects that the country’s electricity generation capacity will be 60,000 megawatts (MW) by 2041.
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 5000MW. Eight to ten hours load-shedding in summer days was causing unbearable miseries.
Bangladesh has now attained the capacity to generate 22,484 megawatts of electricity, including renewable energy and imported power. Besides, there are captive power plants in different industries capable of generating another 2,800MW of electricity. Now, 99.75 percent of the people have access to electricity. It is expected that every house will get power supply by this year.
According to the power division, apart from boosting economic growth, increased power coverage has improved the lives of people in remote villages and created new income-generating opportunities for people.
According to a study by research institute BIDS (Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies), an increase in power generation by 10 lakh units adds about Tk 4.60 crore to 10.70 crore to the macro economy every year. The cost of electricity in a diesel-powered irrigation pump stands at Tk 47.18 per unit whereas the same amount of power from the grid costs an irrigation pump only Tk 4.