Glitches in gas-fired plants impede power generation

Technical glitches at less expensive gas-fired power plants and their persistent closure are eating up the overall growth in electricity generation, pushing the overall electricity generation cost higher, industry insiders said.
All sorts of clients, from less-electricity consuming domestic users to large consuming industrial units, are bearing the brunt of the increasing electricity tariff, they said.
Power plants having the total generation capacity of 2,333 megawatts (MW) were shut Tuesday only due to technical problems, which is almost double than the accumulated electricity generation capacity in high-cost rental and quick rental power plants, said a senior official of the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).
On the contrary, the high-cost oil-fired power plants were almost fully operational on that particular day to back up the generation bottlenecks, BPDB statistics revealed.
This has been the usual trend in the country's present electricity supply situation, for which electricity generation is hovering around 6,500 MW, although the installed capacity has exceeded 10,000 MW, he added.
A total of 17 diesel and furnace oil-fired rental and quick rental power plants, having the total generation capacity of 1,334 MW were built and commissioned by private sector from January 2009 to February 2014. It has been identified as the main reason behind the sharp increase in electricity tariff over the past several years.
Generation capacity of all expensive oil-fired power plants, including those owned by the state-owned entities, is around 2,200 MW. It is less than the overall electricity generation capacity that was affected due to technical glitches of power plants, said the BPDB official.
A World Bank study has revealed that the installation of these expensive oil-fired power plants pushed up the country's average electricity generation cost to Tk 6.7 per unit (1 kilowatt hour) until the previous fiscal year (FY) 2013 from Tk 2.62 per unit of the FY 2011.
If the government took initiatives to rehabilitate the old power plants in the earliest, it could have avoided installing too many high cost oil-fired rental and quick rental power plants and checked the rising cost of electricity generation, the BPDB official admitted.
A senior official of the state-owned Petrobangla said the existing gas-fired power plants are not being able to consume their allotted gas due to various technical problems.
He said gas-fired power plants are currently consuming less than 900 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of gas.
"But we have the capacity to provide around 1,000 mmcfd of gas to the plants, as the country's natural gas production capacity has increased," he said.
Gas production reached 2,360 mmcfd recently with the initiation of gas supply from several newly-drilled gas wells, Petrobangla chairman Hussain Monsur told the FE.
"But we are squeezing down the production to around 2,300 mmcfd on an average," he said.  
BPDB, however, has showed that 405 MW of electricity generation was affected Tuesday due to gas supply shortfall.
The gas-fired power plants that were shut due to technical problems include five units of Ghorashal power plant having the total generation capacity of 936 MW, Meghnaghat 450 MW power plant, Rauzan 210 MW, Khulna 170 MW, Haripur 96 MW, and Baghabari 90 MW power plant.
The government, however, floated tender to re-power three units of 210 MW capacity Ghorashal power plant with the latest one floated in this February.   
When contacted Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) president Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed said the increased power tariff is affecting the country's industrial growth.
"The government should rehabilitate and replace the old gas-fired power plants immediately to reduce electricity generation cost," he said.
The high cost oil-fired rental and quick rental power plants should also be phased out accordingly, he added.
"This is unfortunate that power plants with such a huge capacity remained shut due to technical problems," former director general of Power Cell BD Rahmatullah told the FE Tuesday.
He said continuous operation of the old-aged plants resulted in shutdown of such plants.
Many of the country's gas-fired plants are aged between 24 and 44 years. These plants regularly trip, as they are forced to operate at their full capacity.      
"Continuous electricity generation results in increasing number of breakdown in the power plants. Efficiency of plants and their machinery also go down when mercury rises."
A regular maintenance keeps a plant idle for up to 20 days, while a breakdown stops generation for at least three months.  
Currently the country has five power plants aged over 44 years, 11 units 35-44 years, 23 units between 25-34 years, 19 units between 15-24 years, and 69 units between 4-14 years of age.
A power plant has a maximum lifespan of around 22 years. The old power plants consume more energy than the new ones, he added.