Inefficient power plants waste huge amount of gas
Sunday, 1 November 2009
DHAKA, Oct 31 (BSS) - About 75 per cent of our natural gas is being misused at inefficient power plants across the country wasting thousand of millions of takas and valuable non-renewable natural resources, reports BSS.
The dilapidated and old power plants have now become white elephants and gas-guzzlers but due to lack in policy and fund constraints, Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has so far failed to take any measure to replace these power plants for ages.
"The Haripur and Shajibazar plants have consumed 7,090 million cubic feet of natural gas in 2008 to generate 480 GWh (Gigawatt hours), however, using the same quantity of gas in a state-of-the-art gas turbine and in an aero-derivative gas turbine 683 GWh (42 per cent more) and 879 GWh (83 per cent more) of electricity respectively could have been generated," Dr Ijaz Hossain, energy expert and BUET professor told the news agency Saturday.
He also said that the average generation efficiency of gas turbine power plants under BPDB is 25.3 per cent (weighted average using MWh (megawatt per hours) generated in FY 2008).
Echoing the energy expert's view, Alamgir Kabir, chairman of BPDB said that Ashuganj-128 MW, Ghorashal-110 MW and Chittagong-60 MW power plants were more than 25 years old. These three plants have consumed 15,604 million cubic feet of gas (MMCF) in 2008 to generate 1,203 GWh (net of station's own use) of electricity but using the same amount of gas in new state-of-the-art CCGTs one could generate more than 2,000 GWh of electricity.
He said the average generation efficiency of steam thermal power plants under BPDB is 31.5 per cent (weighted average using electricity generated).
"Nowadays the standard practice is to use Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) when natural gas is the fuel. The efficiencies of the new CCGT plants are significantly higher than older steam thermal units. In fact, all new gas fired base load power plants that BPDB expects to build in the future is planned as CCGTs, Dr Ijaz said.
CCGTs can easily achieve efficiencies above 50 per cent. CCGT technologies are fully commercial, and cost much less than steam thermal plants in terms of levelized costs of power generation. It is therefore obvious that CCGTs are baseline options for countries that generate their electricity using natural gas, he added.
However, all of Bangladesh's gas fired base load power plants under the BPDB are steam thermal, the only exception being the Fenchuganj 90 MW plant.
In a combined cycle gas turbine plant, a gas turbine generator generates electricity and the waste heat is used to make steam to generate additional electricity via a steam turbine; this last step enhances the efficiency of electricity generation, Alamgir said.
"We submit a proposal to the power ministry to replace our power plants and install CCGT, however, we did not get any response till today" BPDB chairman said.
The dilapidated and old power plants have now become white elephants and gas-guzzlers but due to lack in policy and fund constraints, Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has so far failed to take any measure to replace these power plants for ages.
"The Haripur and Shajibazar plants have consumed 7,090 million cubic feet of natural gas in 2008 to generate 480 GWh (Gigawatt hours), however, using the same quantity of gas in a state-of-the-art gas turbine and in an aero-derivative gas turbine 683 GWh (42 per cent more) and 879 GWh (83 per cent more) of electricity respectively could have been generated," Dr Ijaz Hossain, energy expert and BUET professor told the news agency Saturday.
He also said that the average generation efficiency of gas turbine power plants under BPDB is 25.3 per cent (weighted average using MWh (megawatt per hours) generated in FY 2008).
Echoing the energy expert's view, Alamgir Kabir, chairman of BPDB said that Ashuganj-128 MW, Ghorashal-110 MW and Chittagong-60 MW power plants were more than 25 years old. These three plants have consumed 15,604 million cubic feet of gas (MMCF) in 2008 to generate 1,203 GWh (net of station's own use) of electricity but using the same amount of gas in new state-of-the-art CCGTs one could generate more than 2,000 GWh of electricity.
He said the average generation efficiency of steam thermal power plants under BPDB is 31.5 per cent (weighted average using electricity generated).
"Nowadays the standard practice is to use Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) when natural gas is the fuel. The efficiencies of the new CCGT plants are significantly higher than older steam thermal units. In fact, all new gas fired base load power plants that BPDB expects to build in the future is planned as CCGTs, Dr Ijaz said.
CCGTs can easily achieve efficiencies above 50 per cent. CCGT technologies are fully commercial, and cost much less than steam thermal plants in terms of levelized costs of power generation. It is therefore obvious that CCGTs are baseline options for countries that generate their electricity using natural gas, he added.
However, all of Bangladesh's gas fired base load power plants under the BPDB are steam thermal, the only exception being the Fenchuganj 90 MW plant.
In a combined cycle gas turbine plant, a gas turbine generator generates electricity and the waste heat is used to make steam to generate additional electricity via a steam turbine; this last step enhances the efficiency of electricity generation, Alamgir said.
"We submit a proposal to the power ministry to replace our power plants and install CCGT, however, we did not get any response till today" BPDB chairman said.