Govt set to amend captive power policy

M Azizur Rahman

The government is set to amend the Captive Power Policy (CPP) aiming to encourage the captive power plant owners for supplying  electricity to the national grid.

The move might be taken against the backdrop of poor response from power plant owners on electricity sale because of the terms and conditions of the CPP.

The Council of Advisers that adopted the CPP a couple of months ago would like to soften some of its terms and conditions to encourage the industrialists to sell electricity from their captive power units to the state-owned entity in the power sector.

The Power Division subsequently sent letters to the state-owned electricity utility providers to initiate negotiation on the power trade with the captive power owners.

The Power Division at a meeting Monday, with Energy and Power Adviser Tapan Chowdhury in the chair, reviewed the progress of the government initiative to purchase electricity from the captive power units.

"We have got offer for only 3.50 megawatt (MW) of electricity under the existing terms and conditions of the CPP," a senior Power Division official was quoted as saying at the meeting.

Currently, the electricity generated by the captive power plants is around 1,300 MW across the country.

If the existing terms and conditions of the CPP are amended, the government might get more electricity from the captive power units, he noted.

The Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Centre (IIFC), a state-owned consultancy firm, also demonstrated a concept note on the utilisation of the country's captive power at Monday's meeting.

Chief executive of the IIFC Nazrul Islam in his presentation stressed the need for allowing captive power generators to use the national power grid, now monopolised by the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).

In return, the captive power operators will pay wheeling charges to the BPDB, the grid operator, and the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), the transmission network operator.

The plan, if implemented, will substantially undercut the monopoly of the BPDB and pave the way for a multiple buyer model, the IIFC official narrated.

Power Division sources said it has set a target to add around 50 MW of electricity from the captive power units this month.

And to attain it the Power Division is now considering amendment of the CPP, they added.