Fuel-guzzling plants raise power prices

Fuel-guzzling power plants with their long-overdue retirements make electricity costlier as the government continues to operate them despite having power generation capacity surplus to the demand. 

According to data available from the Power Development Board, 35-year-old Barishal power plant guzzles fuel of Tk 37.83 while newly built Shikalbaha power plant needs fuel of Tk 13.81 to generate a unit of electricity in 2019.

Among the gas-fired power plants, 45-year-old Ghorashal power plant generates a unit of power guzzling fuel of Tk 1.18 while Bibiyana power plant spends Tk 0.60 on fuel per unit of power, according to the data.

Over 13 per cent of the country’s installed capacity, which is 2,442 MW, belongs to power plants aged above 20 years, the average lifetime of gas- and oil-fired power plants, electrical engineers said.

They said that the lifetime might vary depending on the technology in use but plants using gas turbines usually operate between 15 to 20 years while those using steam turbines stay efficient for 25 years.

Nuclear and hydropower plants are more durable but Bangladesh does not source any electricity from nuclear plants yet and very little from one hydropower plant.

Energy experts said that operating power plants beyond their retirement ages was environmentally and economically harmful and served no purposes other than facilitating corruption and helping the government overestimate its power capacity.

‘Power plants operate on a lifetime and decay with aging,’ Saifur Rahman, professor, electrical and computer engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, USA, told New Age.

He said that power plants should retire after a certain time for minimising losses.

BUET’s chemical engineering professor Ijaz Hossain said that regular maintenance keeps a power plant efficient but only for a certain period of time. After that frequent repairs and machinery replacements make its operation economically unviable.

Eleven of the 13 power plants aged over 20 years are either single cycle steam  turbine or combustion turbine power plants. The rest two are combined cycle power plants in operation for up to 32 years. They are run on gas and diesel.

A random look at the latest assessment of capacity of individual power plants by Power Development Board reveals that five of the power plants still retained installed capacity after being in operation for more than two, three or even four decades.

In 2017, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission asked the PDB to phase out two of the five power plants in question — Saidpur 20 MW and Rangpur 20 MW — for being highly inefficient.

The diesel-run Saidpur and Rangpur power plants together with two other inefficient power plants increased power sector expenses by Tk 600 crore in 2017, the BERC had estimated.

In 2019, the 32-year-old Saidpur power plant operated with 21.53 per cent efficiency, the PDB’s annual report showed.

On the other hand, the 31-year-old Rangpur power plant operated with 18.10 per cent efficiency.

The efficiency of a power plant is the output gained in relation to input.

PDB officials said that an efficient power plant should have minimum 50 per cent efficiency.  

‘There is no point in running power plants after their retirement ages, especially when there is surplus power,’ said professor Shamsul Alam, dean, faculty of engineering, Daffodil International University.

Shamsul Alam, also the energy adviser of Consumers Association of Bangladesh, said though the government claims to have achieved installed capacity of about 18,000 MW it is actually around 15,000 MW, still higher than the country’s highest power demand of around 12,980 MW.

The 35-year-old diesel-run Barishal power plant is another plant that the BERC had asked the PDB to retire in 2017. It had only 16.14 per cent efficiency in 2019, showed PDB’s annual report.

The 39-year-old diesel-run Bheramara power plant had 22.21 per cent efficiency in 2019.

The BERC said that generally an efficient diesel-based power plant need fuel worth Tk 14 for generating per unit of electricity but the fuel expenditure multiplied in the plants in question.

The PDB data showed that the 35-year-old Barishal power plant spends Tk 37.83 on fuel for generating per unit of electricity while the newly built diesel-based Shikalbaha power plant needed fuel worth Tk 13.81 to generate a unit of electricity in 2019.

Shamsul Alam said that power plants consume more fuel but generate less power with frequent maintenance, repairing and replacement of machineries required after retirement age.

In 2019, the BERC asked the PDB to phase out three gas-fired power plants for being too old to operate.

Efficient power plants use 10 cubic feet of gas to generate a unit of electricity but fuel consumption in the three gas-fired power plants were far greater, said the BERC, without disclosing specific plant-wise data.

The PDB data showed that the gas-fired 45-year-old Ghorashal power plant spent nearly twice as much the newly built gas-based Bibiyana power plant in fuel cost in generating a unit of power in 2019.

The Ghorashal power plant used fuel worth Tk 1.18 for generating per unit of electricity while the Bibiyana power plant generated a unit spending Tk 0.60 on fuel.

‘We are aware of the losses uncured by old power plants and protecting people against paying extra for keeping them in operation,’ said BERC member Mizanur Rahman.

He said that additional expenditure caused by aged power plants was not adjusted to tariff calculation.

But the actual number of outdated power plants is far greater than the number announced by the BERC.

In 2019, the government spent one paisa in operational and maintenance costs in producing per unit of electricity in its new power plants while the cost in aged power plants was up to Tk 1.26.

Even the Tongi power plant, established 14 years ago, spent Tk 0.77 in operational and maintenance costs for generating a unit of electricity. 

The newly appointed PDB chairman Zahurul Haque could not be reached for a comment.

The immediate past PDB chairman Sayeed Ahmed said that though they have surplus power they were unable to phase out some aged power plants because of strategic reasons with some in the process of being abandoned soon.

‘Some of these aged power plants serve as emergency backups in remote areas,’ said Sayeed Ahmed.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net