The government has undertaken a big move to set up a 800MW 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.

“The government has undertaken a series of projects to increase the country’s power generation capacity as we have targeted to generate 24,000 MW electricity by 2021,” State Minister for Power, energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told the news agency yesterday.

He said the proposed power plant would help reduce system loss of electricity as consumers would get more reliable power from their nearby source.

An official said the commission has already reviewed a draft project of the Power Division titled ‘Construction of Roopsa 800MW combined cycle power plant’ and it is likely to be placed before the ECNEC meeting tomorrow.

He said 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 8,498.64 crore.

Out of the total project cost, the official said, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) are expected to provide Tk 5,987.87 crore as project assistance, Tk 50 crore will come from the organisation’s own fund while the rest Tk 2,460.77 crore would be given by the government.

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 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 by generating some 24,000MW of Power by that year.

To materialise 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 was held on February 6 where the Planning Commission suggested for restructuring the DPP.

Following the recommendations of the Planning Commission, the Power Division restructured the DPP and again submitted it before the Planning Commission where it suggested for placing before the ECNEC.