Nearly half of PDB power units more than 20 yrs old

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FHM Humayan Kabir
The government has taken a plan to replace a number of aging power units with new ones and sought financial assistance from the World Bank for the job, officials said Friday.
"We've taken a plan to replace the power units which have exceeded 20 to 25 years of operational age," Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser Dr M Tamim told the FE Friday.
"As the generation capacity of the old units has declined, we need to replace those to control the toxic gas emission for a sound environment," he said.
"We have requested the World Bank to analyse the carbon emission from the old power units and if replacements can check the deadly gas emission, then the global lender may provide us funds to set up new power units," Tamim said.
A Power Development Board (PDB) official said about 15 power units, having installed capacity of over 700 megawatt (MW) of electricity, would have to be replaced with new ones due to their aging problem.
He said the country has three power units more than 40 years of age, five units between 35 and 39 years of age, three units 30-34 years of age, seven power units 25-29 years of age and 11 units between 20 and 24 years of age.
"The generation capacity of the old units has decreased by 30 to 50 per cent over the period. Substantial funds are spent for maintenance purposes of those units every year. Moreover, the units consume more-than-normal fuel and emit toxic gas. So, those should be rehabilitated or replaced fully," the official said.
"As per standard rules, the power units should be sent out of operation after completion of 20-22 years of their operational age. But we resort to run some power plants even beyond 30 years of age," he said.
The official said since the country is required to generate additional 800 to 1000MW new power for ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply to the consumers in the next summer, the replacement and rehabilitation of the old power units could be a short-term measure for improving the generation.
A PDB official said installed capacity of all the power units in the country was around 5300MW while their de-rated capacity now stand at 4300MW.
The country presently generates 3500MW-3700MW of power against the demand for over 4200MW leaving about 700MW shortfall.