Bangladesh is boosting power imports from India and output from fuel oil-fired power plants in a scramble to meet rising electricity demand as it grapples with constraints on gas supply and coal plant maintenance, industry officials and analysts say.
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Power imports, mainly from an Adani Power-run coal-fired plant in eastern India, rose 70 per cent in the seven months through July and helped satisfy most of the rising demand, government data showed.
Natural gas accounted for about two-thirds of Bangladesh’s power demand in the decade that ended in 2020, but the country has been boosting power imports and local coal-fired generation due to gas infrastructure challenges and to cut costs.
“It’s about cost-effectiveness, and gas is required for the fertiliser industry, whereas cheap electricity can be received from other sources, including fuel oil,” said Adeeba Aziz Khan, director of Bangladesh’s Summit Power.
Her firm runs a dozen power plants using gas and fuel oil.
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“There is a shortage of gas for electricity generation and evacuation problems,” Khan said on the sidelines of the APPEC conference, adding that it was difficult to see a resurgence in gas-fired generation in the “foreseeable future”.
