The government has initiated a big move to set up a 800 MW combined cycle power plant on the abandoned land of Khulna Newsprint Mills Limited to meet the growing demand of power in the country, reports BSS.

"To this end, the Power Division has prepared a draft project titled 'Construction of Roopsa 800 MW combined cycle power plant' and sent it to the Planning Commission for its consideration," said a senior Planning Commission official.

The official told the news agency that the North West Power Generation Company Limited (NWPGCL) under the Power Division has been assigned to implement the project by June 2022 at an estimated cost of Tk 8,816 crore.

Out of the total project cost, the official said, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) are expected to provide Tk 6,238 crore as project assistance while the rest would be given from the state exchequer.

The project targets improving energy security in Bangladesh. It will increase availability of efficient and cleaner energy by developing a state-of-the-art power plant with 800-megawatt (MW) generation capacity using cleaner and highly efficient power generation technologies.

The Planning Commission official said the project also envisages the construction of associated natural gas supply and power transmission infrastructure facilities, as well as strengthening of the institutional capacity and overall business process of the project's executing agency, North-West Power Generation Company Limited (NWPGCL), to efficiently plan and operate power plants.

He said the power plant will be built on some 50 acres of abandoned land at the Khulna Newsprint Mills where natural gas will be used as the initial energy while HSD as an alternate energy.

According to the sources at the Power Division and the Planning Commission, the government has already set a target to reach electricity to every household by 2021 side by side reducing load shedding through generating some 24,000 MW of Power by that year.

To materialize that goal, the government is implementing various short-term, mid-term and long-term plans and the project for setting up 800 MW combined cycle power plant has been drafted in line with those plans.

According to the draft project proposal, the main project operations include setting up gas turbine generating set with all auxiliaries, steam turbine generating set with all auxiliaries, heat

recovery steam generating set, installation of power transformer 16/230 KV, 400 MVA, 11/230 KV, 200 MVA and distributed controlled system and some 29 kilometer 230 KV Power Transmission Line.

Besides, land purchase and development, construction of residential and non-residential buildings and gas distribution pipe line installation works would also be carried out under the project.

The Pre Evaluation Committee (PEC) meeting on the proposed project has already been held where the Planning Commission suggested for restructuring the cost of some components of the project.

The Planning Commission official informed that after the necessary restructuring, the project will be placed before the meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for its consideration.

EA/SI