Alerted by a nationwide grid collapse, the government has moved for a thorough health checkup of 18 state-owned old power plants to install failsafe mechanisms against sudden breakdown and thereby ensure efficient energy use.
A senior official said the Power Cell had already floated tender to appoint a consultant for undertaking the study on the select power plants, mostly gas-fired, which account for around 20 per cent of the country's overall electricity generation.
Under the work plan for the renovation-where needed-experts have to identify potential power plants for plant-efficiency measures, collect technical details of the plants, formulate their performance profile, determine design data regarding operating parameters, efficiency, heat rate, fuel consumption and review plants' operation and management or overhauling history, operational performance, testing and commissioning records.
The selected consultant will prepare detailed recommendation with specific action plan on the country's selected old power plants, which were installed during the period between 1962 and 2005.
Under the government's technical audit scanner are the 230-megawatt (MW) Karnaphuli hydropower plant, Raozan 420MW, Sikalbaha 60MW, Ashuganj 724MW, Ghorashal 950MW, Haripur 96MW, Siddhirganj 210MW, Tongi 105MW, Shahjibazar 70MW, Fenchuganj 91MW, Sylhet 20MW, Khulna 170MW, Bheramara 170MW, Barisal 45MW, Baghabari 171MW, Barapukuria 250MW, Saidpur 20MW, and Rangpur20MW plants.
"The auditing is necessary to ensure county's fuel security by way of efficient utilisation of gas by improving efficiency of the old power plants," said a senior Power Cell official.
He said the contractor will carry out visual inspection of all units of these power plants, review their logbooks and other available records to establish main reasons for the poor performance of the plants and the present generation capacity.
Furthermore, the experts in electric engineering will find out whether any "preventive maintenance schedule" was developed and faithfully followed by the plant management.
Records of preventive maintenance mechanisms like use of spare parts, duration of planned outages and so will be examined during doing the anatomy of the plants' present physical conditions.
They will draw out performance profile of each unit, including operating parameters, such as effective output capability, power-plant availability, heat rate and efficiency of each unit.
"There will be a brief technical review to assess the potential for using high-viscosity fuel to reduce the plants' generation costs and fix controllable losses and ways of saving auxiliary consumption," said the source about the action plan.
December 21 is set as the bid-submission deadline for the consultants interested to carry out the technical audit of the old power plants.
The job has to be completed within six months of the awarding of contract.
The country plunged under the 'worst-ever' electricity blackout as the entire transmission line collapsed on November 1 following technical glitch in the country's western grid at 11:30 am.
As the power plants have connections with the national grid, all the power plants across the country tipped one after another as a 'cascade' effect.
The power plants were on track of reinitiating electricity generation at 3pm when some 800MW electricity was generated.
But a failure in synchronizing electricity generation and supply caused the overall supply failure second time in the afternoon.
Finally, the power plants started generating electricity again at 9 pm.
Such a cataclysmic power-system breakdown warranted brainstorming by experts and they came to the conclusion that prevention is better than cure for such a desperate situation. Installing shock-observing devices to prevent such mass breakdown was suggested by many of them.
azizjst@yahoo.com
Old power plants to come under ‘health checkup’
M Azizur Rahman | Published: December 03, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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