Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh (CPGCBL) is reportedly planning to develop two coal-fired power plants, each with a power generation capacity of 600MW with potential investment of around $4.6bn.
Planned to be built on an island in the Bay of Bengal which is located at a 32km distance from the beach resort of Cox’s Bazar, the power plants are expected to meet the power demands in the country, a senior official said.
Reuters cited CPGCBL managing director Mohammad Abul Quasem as saying that the state-run company plans to secure $3.7bn financing from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to fund the development of the project while the remaining amount will be sourced from the government.
Quasem said: "This is the biggest project in the power sector in terms of both investment and power generation capacity" (in the country).
Two Japanese companies Sumitomo and Marubeni have submitted their bids to partner in the construction of the projects which is scheduled to commence from March next year.
The projects are expected to be commissioned in August 2022.
Bangladesh suffers power shortage of up to 1,500MW per day despite having power generation capacity of around 8,000MW.
Bangladesh power, energy and mineral resources junior minister Nasrul Hamid said: "If we want to raise our economic growth to 8% from 6.5% now, then our power generation (growth) should be 15%."
The government is also planning to build a liquefied natural gas terminal, a floating terminal for the loading and unloading of fuel oil, and petrochemical factories on the island in the Bay of Bengal in a bid to turn it into an energy hub.
Image: Bangladesh has power generation capacity of around 8,000MW. Photo: courtesy of John Kasawa / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.