The state-run Power Development Board, even six months after it was asked to do so, has still not drafted any guidelines on how the new Power Maintenance and Development Fund should be used for increasing power generation in the old plants.
On February 8 this year, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission asked the PDB to submit guidelines for the release and spending of the fund which it set up after announcing an 18.14 per cent hike, in the price of electricity that distribution agencies will buy, to be imposed in two stages.
The commission had ordered the PDB to create the fund by setting aside 5.17 per cent of the revenue it had collected, which would then be used for the ‘balancing/maintenance, modernisation, rehabilitation and expansion (BMRE) of the existing power plants in order to increase their capacity and efficiency, and to reduce production costs’.
The commission had estimated that in the first year the new fund would amount to Tk 364.5 crore, allowing it to increase the total amount of power available to the country by at least 60MW by setting up new high-tech and efficient plants or units in the old power plants.
Power expert Shamsul Alam told New Age that he was doubtful whether the fund would be effective as there had been no action in the last six months.
He pointed out that, according to the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act 2003, a licensee was committing a punishable offence if it
disobeyed any order of the commission.
Concerned officials also noted that the fund will also increase as the country’s power generation increases.
PDB’s chairman could not explain to New Age why his organisation has produced no guideline.
However, another PDB official said that the concerned officials were very involved in the establishment of the private sector rental power plants and had no time to pay attention to increasing power generation by the old plants in the public sector.
The commission’s chairman, Yusuf Hossain, told New Age that they had recently sent a letter to the PDB, telling it that no guideline has been received yet.
In its order the commission categorically told the PDB to use the fund to replace older power plants with new ones where gas was available and, as the next priority, to add efficient power units to the existing power plants.
The commission had calculated that these actions would help to add a significant amount of power to the national grid relatively cheaply since the PDB would not need to acquire or develop any land.
A number of public sector power plants with an installed capacity of about 3,000MW are running at lower capacity and are prone to break down due to lack of maintenance and a need to be overhauled.
According to statistics released by the PDB in 2010, the country has a total installed capacity of about 6,000MW out of which 1,500 MW is generated by plants that are 21 to 40 years old and another 1,400 MW from plants that are 11 to 20 years old.
The government is implementing a number of expensive fuel oil-fired rental power plants in the private sector across the country, which will all together produce 1,753 MW of power as a short-term solution to the country’s power crisis.
-With New Age input
