$146.74m loans sought for 2 new hydro power units

The government has sought US$146.74 million concessional loans from donors to set up two new 100-megawatt (MW) capacity units at the Karnaphuli hydropower plant at Kaptai, officials said Saturday.
Power Division officials said the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) had planned to set up 6th and 7th power units with 50MW capacity each at the existing Karnaphuli hydropower station site at Kaptai to boost its total generation using water resources.
The Karnaphuli hydro-power plant has now five units with combined installed capacity of 220MW. Presently, it supplies nearly 175MW a day in the peak hours.
Engg. Abdur Rahman, Manager of the Kaptai power plant, told the FE that they have scope to set up two more units for generating extended electricity from the plant.
The power units could be utilised in the peak time to ensure demand at the national grid, he said.
"We have already sent the preliminary project proposal to the Planning Commission and the Economic Relations Division (ERD) for seeking funds from donors," said a senior Power Division official.
He said they would prefer concessional loan for setting up the hydro-power units from the donors including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Japan government.
A Planning Commission (PC) official said they had already sent the project proposal of the BPDB to the ERD looking for funds from different multilateral and bilateral donors.
If the ERD gets funds from any donor, we would proceed to approve the project proposal of the BPDB for setting up the two units, the official said.
In Bangladesh, where the per capita electricity consumption is the lowest even among the South Asian countries, nearly half of the population is still out of electricity coverage.
All the power plants of the country generate nearly 6,500MW electricity a day against the demand for more than 7,500MW for the existing customers.