Govt invites tenders to run 8 furnace-oil power plants

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M Azizur Rahman
The government has invited bids to install eight more furnace oil-run power plants in five divisions and generate around 600 megawatts of electricity on build, own and operate (BOO) basis, officials said Monday.
State-owned Power Development Board (PDB) has floated the tenders Monday to build the power plants by the private sector as independent power producer projects (IPPs).
Of the total plants, two furnace oil-run power plants expected to generate 100 mw and 50 mw will be installed in Dhaka division, two similar plants expected to generate 150mw electricity in total will be built in Chittagong and two more similar plants expected to generate an accumulated 150mw electricity will be set up in Rajshahi division.
Two 100mw capacity each furnace oil-run power plants will be built in Khulna and Rajshahi divisions.
The government has invited the bids to install power plants one year after the previous tender.
It selected sponsors for over a dozen rental and quick rental power plants during the past one year without tendering.
"We have introduced an easier tendering system this time to reduce time," PDB chairman ASM Alamgir Kabir said.
He said the interested sponsors must have to submit documents regarding qualification, technical abilities and price offers at a time.
"On the previous occasion, we used to seek documents for qualification first," said the PDB top official.
The selected sponsors were required to develop lands of the power plant sites of their own.
They could import required fuel by themselves or assign state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) to arrange fuel for them, said Mr Kabir.
The closing date for submitting applications is November 15 next.
The PDB expects that the power plants would initiate electricity generation from September 2012.
Officials have said the government now sees furnace oil-fired power plants as the best option to ease the country's acute electricity crisis in the short run as gas is drying up fast with coal not being considered an interim solution.
The government has already awarded 27 power plant projects since January 2010, most of which would be oil-fired plants.
Of the total contracted plants so far - four are rental, 14 are quick rental and 11 are public sector power plants.
Currently, electricity generation is hovering around 4,000mw against the peak hour demand of over 6,000 megawatts.
Around 86 per cent of the power plants are fired by gas, four per cent by coal, four per cent by furnace oil, three per cent with hydro energy and three per cent with diesel.
Electricity generation from renewable sources is negligible.
Augmenting electricity generation is high on the agenda of the incumbent government.
It has pledged to increase the country's overall electricity generation to 5000 mw by 2011, and to 7000 mw by 2013.