Bangladesh plans 3 IPP simultaneously

Dhaka: The government has planned to proceed simultaneously with three major independent power plants to add roughly 1350MW to the national grid in next four to five years, officials said.
The Power Division on Tuesday approved the pre-qualification bidding documents for setting up 450MW Meghnaghat-III, paving the way for Power Cell to start tender process for yet another large independent power plant.

The cell in September invited companies and consortiums to participate in pre-qualification bidding for setting up 360-450MW Bibiyana power plant on build-own-operate basis.

The division last week approved documents of 450MW Sirajganj power plant and the Power Cell will invite companies and consortiums to participate in pre-qualification bidding in next few days, officials said.

Power Division officials said that the cell would float pre-qualification bidding for 450MW Meghnaghat-III power plant after seeing the responses to the bidding processes of Bibiyana and Sirajganj power plants.

Apart from Bibiyana, Sirajganj and Meghnaghat-III power plant projects were initiated by the previous BNP-led four-party government, which failed to award the contract to any company because of political reasons.

‘We have planned to hold the tender processes of the three large power plants almost simultaneously. However, in case of Meghnaghat, we will observe the responses and then invite pre-qualification bidding,’ said an official.

Asked whether the Power Cell has enough manpower to handle three big projects simultaneously, he said, ‘There will be few days’ gap among the tender processes. Besides, ADB and IFC will provide advisory supports. If we get good responses, we will be able to handle those.’

The Cell will receive pre-qualification offers for Bibiyana power plant until November 8, while the last date for submission of proposals for Sirajganj plant may fall in the middle of December.

The proposed timetable for completing tender procedure and signing agreements with the selected companies for the three large IPPs is 425 days.

‘If everything goes well, we will be able to complete tender processes and award contracts for these power plants between November 2008 and January 2009. The expected commissioning dates of the plants are between 2011 and 2012,’ the Power Division official said.

Electricity authorities are giving high priority to these three projects as the demand is projected to grow up to 7730-9200MW in 2012 from about 5000MW at present.