PDB paying Tk115 crore monthly penalty for keeping half of plant capacity unused
Eyamin Sajid: The country’s biggest power plant at Payra is operating at half capacity, as one of its two units has remained idle since its completion in December last year owing to delays in the construction of a transmission line.
Consequently, the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) has been paying the Payra power company Tk115 crore every month as “capacity payment” – a kind of penalty for keeping a functional plant idle, said a top official of the board.
The first unit of the 1,320MW Payra Thermal Power Plant went into commercial operation on 15 May last year and the second unit on 8 December the same year.
Power generated by this plant was supposed to be transmitted to Dhaka through a new transmission line that was scheduled for completion by December 2020.
The transmission line – being built by the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) – is now half done. The line requires seven towers across the River Padma to connect Dhaka.
The Padma Bridge authorities were tasked with constructing the transmission towers but they have only recently started working on the project, officials have said.
But no one can say when these towers will be completed.
The BPDB is now feeding power from the first unit to an existing transmission line for the country’s southwestern region.
With the second unit staying unused, the BPDB is buying costlier power from oil-based power plants to compensate for the shortage of supply, besides spending quite a big sum of money as capacity payments.
BPDB Chairman Engineer Md Belayet Hossain said, “We could have avoided purchasing expensive electricity from oil-fired power plants If we had the full capacity of the Payra power plant.”
The cost of oil-based power ranges between Tk16 and Tk22 per unit, whereas Payra’s power sells at Tk7.5 per unit.
“We are pushing the agency concerned to complete the transmission line,” the chairman added.