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.
"The government has undertaken a series of projects to increase the country's power generation capacity as we have targeted to generate 24,000MW electricity by 2021," State Minister for Power, energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said on Sunday.
He said the proposed power plant will 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 on Tuesday.
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 84.9864 billion (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 59.8787 billion (Tk 5,987.87 crore) as project assistance, Tk 500 million will come from the organisation's own fund while the rest Tk 24.6077 billion (Tk 2,460.77 crore) will 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, reports BSS.
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 24,000 MW of Power by that year.