24MW rental power plant goes into operation next week


The 24 Megawatt (MW) rental power plant of Regent Power Limited at Barabkunda under Sitakunda upazila will start generation of power from the next week.Regent Power Limited, one of the nine private firms, got permission to generate power in November 2007.Habib Group set up the plant at a cost of Tk 130 crore on 2.5 acres of land. Construction work of the plant started in May last year alongside the Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) Sub-Station in the Barabkunda area. After completion of construction of infrastructure in February, the plant completed installation of equipment including generator, transformer and distribution lines under the supervision of the local and foreign engineers in April.The authorities as of Monday tested five of the eight generators, each 3MW capacity, successfully and sent the generated power to the national grid informally, said the company Director (Finance) AKM Ilias.He said they would go for formal generation next week after examining the generators successfully and getting optimum performances. He said they are giving final touch on everything targeting the formal generation within shortest possible time.Habib Group Managing Director Yasin Ali said as per agreement with the government they would sell the generated power to the PDB and the power will directly go to the national grid through the Barabkunda Sub-Station.He said if the government allows they would be able to generate up to 100MW within three months. Chittagong PDB Chief Engineer Joytish Chandra Biswas told The Daily Star that the plant already was distributing power to the grid informally and they got 15MW on Monday night.Though its capacity is little it would help reduce power crisis to some extent, he said.He also emphasised the need for setting up more rental power plant to address the on going power crisis immediately.Consumers of Chittagong PDB have been facing 200MW load-shedding on an average as six power units, out of 10, in Chittagong region remained closed due to lack of sufficient gas supply and fall in water level at the Kaptai Lake for long.Of the active units, two units of 420 capacity at Raozan Thermal Power Plant are generating on an average 280MW to 300MW while two other units of the Kaptai Hydraulic Power Plant are contributing 70MW to 80MW at night.With this, the PDB gets on an average 120MW power from national grid to meet the total demand of around 600MW in peak hours while national grid also takes power from Chittagong units sometimes, sources at the PDB said.Besides, construction of two other power plants, rental and state-run, is going on in full swing to go into operation by June this year and April next year respectively.Of them, private-firm Energies Power Corporation Limited is setting up a 73.8MW capacity furnace oil-fired plant at Shikalbaha on other bank of the river Karnaphuli under Patiya upazila.According to the agreement with the government, PDB will get 55MW power from the plant while the rest will be rented to private firms.On the other hand, the government is setting up a 150MW Peaking Power Plant in the same area at a cost of Tk 534 crore. The double source, both fuel and gas, plant is expected to go into production by April next year.

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