Indian power import begins commercially Oct 5.

The commercial import of electricity from India would begin from October 5, Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, energy adviser to the prime minister, said on Thursday.

“One hundred seventy five megawatt (MW) electricity would be added to the national grid on October 5, which would go up to 500 MW by the end of November,” he said at a press briefing at the Press Information Department (PID) in the secretariat.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh would inaugurate the ceremony through a video conference on that day, he added.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two countries in 2010 regarding import of a total of 500 MW power from India to the high voltage sub-station of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) in Bheramara of Kushtia.
Half of this power will come from the Indian state-owned National Thermal Power Company (NTPC) and the rest from the country’s open market.

The total amount of electricity, which is to be imported under a 35-year contract, will greatly improve the country’s power crisis situation, which is now being tackled through costly but short-term rental power plants, the energy adviser said.

The tariff would be a little over Tk 4 for per kilowatt-hour or unit electricity collected from NTPC and around Tk 6 for per kwh from open market, which is lower than the current tariff of electricity in the local market of Bangladesh, he added.

The sub-station in Bheramara was constructed with the capacity of handling 1,000 MW of electricity, which gives the provision of importing more power from the neighbouring country in future, he further said.

Source : thedailystar.net