Energy Bangla reported that 42 months have passed since present government of grand alliance assumed state power. Government could just sign contract with a local first timer company Orion Group for setting up 3 major imported coal based power plants with a total capacity of 1087MW.With only 18 months left in the current term of the present government it is highly unlikely that major works of the project can be completed within December 2013. If there is new government the projects may run into hot waters as there still remains lots of issues and challenges for imported coal based power plants in Bangladesh. Government would have done much better to start mining of own high quality sweet coal and advance mine mouth power generation.
Government and power plant developer expect that the power plants at Rampal, Bagerhat and Anowara, Chittagong will be on stream within 36 months and the plant at Maowa, Munshiganj may be commissioned in 45 months. It has been told that coal will be imported from Indonesia and Australia and issues related to transportation of coal to plants and emissions from coal plants have been professionally investigated and addressed.
Dr Tawfique-e-Elahi Chowdhury BB, Prime minister Advisor has termed the signing of the agreements as milestone. True it is .When something is done for the first time anywhere is a milestone. But we would have acknowledged and appreciated Dr Tawfiques statement if he would have said this at the inauguration of the power supply from these plants after 36 months ie June 2015. There are still many issues of challenges of imported coal based power plant in Bangladesh. It may not be at all easy for an inexperienced developer to successfully implement such projects.
Import of coal to Bangladesh by sea is a huge challenge for lack of port infrastructure and shallow draft of port channel. Neither Chittagong, nor Mongla port has required draft for even smallest size of coal carrier to enter; neither port has coal handling and temporary storage facilities. Moreover most of the river routes of Bangladesh do not have all season navigability. Handling of self burning coal must not be confused with any other commodity. Anchoring mother vessels at deep sea and transshipment through ligtherage vessels may not be feasible as it is thought now. The transshipment of huge amount of coal [10 thousand tons a day] for interrupted operation of the power plants will require deployment of a large fleet of ligtherage vessels. One must also think about obvious pollution and fire hazards of coal during transportation. How coal from deep sea will be continuously transported to Maowa from Chittagong and Mongla?
We hope PDB and Power Ministry has carefully examined the feasibility studies for the imported coal based power plants and have scrutinized the Environmental Impact Assessment Studies of the initiatives. Mr Obaidul Karim has talked about advanced “Supercritical Technology” to limit emissions from the power plants. We have seen the so called Zero emissions power plants at mine mouth of open pit coal mine at Tarong and Swanbank in Queensland Australia.
These however, could not ensure so called “Zero Emissions “as yet .Hence there is no reason to believe that the Supercritical technology would bring required control over emissions in Bangladesh. The plant at Rampal, Bagerhat may impact the Sundarban Mangrove forest, the world heritage. We hope PDB and Power Division of MOEMR took this into consideration .The concept of clean coal technology still remains a myth till now.
FOB price of quality coal for supercritical technology, transportation and storage of huge volume of coal, uninterrupted inland transportation costs may make it very challenging to arrive at the tariff that has been agreed in the agreement. However, if it happens that will be much better than relying on imported coal based quick rental plants.
There will be a change in government in 2014. There is no guarantee that present government will be there for another term. If the investor fail to complete financial closure and start construction before the expiry of the term the implementation of the projects may become uncertain.
Dr Tawfique mentioned about commencement middle term planning of Government’s mega plan. We welcome that. From what we have observed about implementation of several large Gas and dual fuel based major power plants awarded to local Summit Group and GE JV we are not sure about successful implementation of the projects discussed here. Experts believe that mining own coal and setting up mine mouth based power plants could be much better option. Perhaps policy makers are caught in the trap of coal mafia syndicate which could successfully confuse policy makers about myths of mining coal. It is very unfortunate to even imagine that while 150 Million people of Bangladesh suffers from diabolic energy supply situation Bangladesh can afford the luxury of keeping its black gold buried below surface.
Source - Energy Bangla
(www.coalguru.com)
