Where are we going with the energy sector in Bangladesh? High-quality natural gas at a meager price available within the country was no doubt instrumental in the accelerated economic development in the past but with recently imported primary energy for power generation or even direct import of electricity and similar doubtful steps in making the power supply available for the country have raised the concern of maintaining the same wavelength of development as in the past in the coming years.
The decreasing trend of availability of indigenous natural gas, the shift from coal-based power plants to gas, including high-priced imported LNG plants state-owned and by IPP, and the import of electricity without any hints to develop its sources of primary fuels for power generation, as well as concentrating interests on doubtful renewable energy sources and similar uncertainties in the energy sector in Bangladesh could be a serious concern for all.
The country's existing installed capacity of fully operational coal-based power plants is 4,800 MW. Considering the capacity of the experimentally launched power plant, it stands at about 6,000 megawatts. In 2024, the country's total capacity of coal-based power plants will be over 7,000 MW, while 6,000 to 6,500 megawatts will be available from gas-based power plants. Apart from this, there is an agreement to import another 2,760 MW of electricity from India. Besides, at least 600 MW of renewable (solar and hydro) electricity will be added to the grid. In the first quarter of 2024, coal, gas, imported, and solar power will be more than 16 thousand 800 megawatts to meet the country's electricity demand. Except for solar, most of the plants would be dependent on imports. Due to low demand, about 70-80 percent of the total capacity of oil-based power plants is now underutilized.
Bangladesh has to pay significant capacity charges to the sitting power plants. In the last 14 years, 82 private and 32 rental power plants have been paid a total of about Tk 1,04,927 crore for capacity charges as informed by the State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources recently in the parliament. The financial situation of BPDB has become very fragile as it cannot pay the price of electricity supplied by the IPPs due to the financial crisis. In the meantime, the outstanding debt of BPDB in these power plants has exceeded Tk 20,000 crore. Furnace oil-based power plants cannot import fuel due to a considerable amount of money stuck with BPDB.
It is high time that a fresh look at the power generation program is given both from academic as well as practical points of view. It is all known that Bangladesh heavily depended on natural gas power generation until recently. With the dwindling gas resources, attempts are being made to explore the possibility of using other fuel sources for power generation, including augmenting the power supply through import. To be frank with the latest developments of ensuring primary fuel for the power plants the issue may be raised that Bangladesh is on the wrong track for choosing LNG as the substitute for indigenous natural gas. Instead of relying on local coal, thrust has been put on imported coal, including the import of power from a source that itself is a deficit country in power generation. Looking back to renewables, the progress made in this nouveau entrant of fuel in the energy sector in Bangladesh has not been very commendable. Solar power installation could be an apology for the attempt to fall back on renewable energy, as the solar power made available is costly, quality-wise, poor, unreliable, and not user-friendly; On the other hand, wind and water sources have made little progress so far in Bangladesh. In short, if the power generation aspects are not reviewed immediately for corrective measures in terms of availability and cost of effective primary sources of energy and compared to the best utilization of indigenous available resources, the days may not be too far before Bangladesh will be in severe power shortages with drastic derogatory consequences in economic and socio-cultural sectors.
The present trend, if continued to march on in power generation, would be too uncertain as to the availability of LNG for a long-term contract at a reasonable price, if no gas is found within the country, then the gas-based power stations will become white elephants to run, on the other hand when the power exporting countries are not self-sufficient in power generation for their population how the import of power may remain a matter of certainty would remain a question. Coal could be the cheaper source of imported fuel for the power plants in the country. Still, while in the recent past, the number of coal-based power plants has been drastically reduced to accommodate gas-based plants, the future sources of coal procurement are also unclear, so the probability of acquiring power supply at a cheaper cost has been deliberately omitted. All these factors make the scenario for the midterm power policy a subject difficult to comprehend or even difficult to envisage for planning for other areas closely linked to the availability of economic, assured, and quality power supply.
Bangladesh geologically is very promising for natural gas, so exploration for new gas fields must get priority. Coal deposits are suitable for exploitation; all coal fields must be developed.
Advanced solar technology needs to be introduced, for which long-term agreements with dependable sources must be made. Wind energy offshore is no doubt a potential attractive source but that calls for feasibility studies to prove the viability. As such, offshore oil and gas exploration must also be tagged with wind energy exploration. River water is another possible source that could play a dynamic role in the energy sector in Bangladesh and must be explored. The crux of the issue is the availability of primary fuel within the country. As indigenous natural gas dominated the energy supply till recent times, the problem of assured electricity has never been felt in Bangladesh; setting up the power plants is no problem, but ensuring the economic supply of primary fuel or prime mover for the generator is the real issue for consideration.
If the available options are deeply analyzed it would be clear that of all the available options, river water is the choicest regarding availability compared to other renewable energy sources. The idea of looking afresh at the river system Bangladeshi revolves around the water resources of the international rivers flowing through the soils of Bangladesh, and this would deal with century-old traditional uses of river water but with a twist in the contents that the inherent energy in the water flow now could be the guiding factor for the downstream activities. As of now, river water is contributing to river transport, floodplain irrigation, subsoil water recharge, and similar issues, but also causing river bank erosion, siltation of waterways, creation of shoals, and occasional floods.
Sand deposition is another input of the river flow in Bangladesh. Sand is used in land reclamation and landfilling or raising the level of existing structures, in the road, or for other infrastructures or buildings. The river also brings valuable heavy minerals with the silica and silt from upstream. Sand in the middle of the river destroys the river's navigability and makes the river route unattractive. Sandpits or silts cause changes in the river channel, and the water courses are diverted in new directions, which starts new erosion points of river banks. The predominant force associated with the river flow damage is the water flow's inherent strength which is a great source of energy that could bring a paradigm shift in the energy supply in Bangladesh and could occupy the coveted position of natural gas that made Bangladesh a strong dynamic development force till recently.
Unfortunately, the inherent strength of river water flow has never been given attention in the past except that during the heavy destruction of villages along the river routes in the process of river bank erosion, the strength of water current has been attempted to be reduced by the construction of groin or other temporary structures which sometimes worked and often were not of much use. Water flowed to the Bay of Bengal without any tangible socio-economic benefit to the people of Bangladesh, which could be of immense amount if one can harness the strength of kinetic forces of river water flow, control the flow through guided mechanism, save the cultivable land from river erosion, supply water to the agricultural land through appropriate water channels and harnessing other associated benefits. Water current forces would be available for power generation with the help of a barrage, dam, pumped storage dam, Kinetic energy of river water flow, and similar innovative approaches. Such a project's guided water current would stop river bank erosion and help enormously with siltation control. It will also contribute to the predicted water movements and transport facilities and arrange scientific irrigation mechanisms for agricultural land. In the case of a sand deposit, it will be possible to have a sand deposit forecast with good quality control, which will facilitate scientific placer deposit mining of sand for assorted value-added quality sand products for uses in different projects as well as for export of heavy minerals.
It is a fact that water resources in Bangladesh have been limited to the uses for limited transport and irrigation purposes only. The inherent strength of water current has never been put to the test for power generation in the country except in Kaptai, which had the topographical advantages for conventional dam-based power generation; the availability of easy indigenous gas in Bangladesh made the situation so easy that there was no compelling reason to look for alternative sources of energy for power generation. But the fast depleting gas resources with no appreciable new gas reserves in sight and the restrictive environment of using fossil fuels globally may compel the country to explore other possible sources of renewable energy and flowing water could be the best option as this is locally available without any worrying factor of importing the primary fuel for power generation in Bangladesh.
The essence of the project would be to use the kinetic forces of river flow. As the river crosses the country to the furthest corner of the boundary, many small power-generating stations could be set up to make electricity available to a large section of the population. When the water flow is controlled, the sand settling will also be controlled, and sand mining could be initiated at predictable places with scientific machinery and sand processing units; the correctly designed weir, barrage, or even dam would be in a position to generate a higher volume of electricity with raised water level facilitating water irrigation for arable land or for surface irrigation. The navigability of the rivers will be maintained, and safe commercial riverine routes could be made available for the country. There will be no more riverbank erosion and no loss of agricultural land, and the million-dollar losses every year from crop damage due to flood or bank erosion would be set aside. Loss from the lost agricultural land, homesteads, roads, and other establishments devoured by rivers would be a matter of the past. All these happened because there was no attempt to control the river flow or, more precisely, the strength of the water flow that entered the country. The river water flow-based project would now deal with the beneficial points and the results could turn the picture from a sorrowful to a delightful Bangladesh.
A feasibility study is a must for the river water flow energy concept to be taken seriously. There are truckloads of studies available in Dhaka, made on the river system, char, and livelihood of its inhabitants, hydrography, navigability, data for bridges on the rivers, etc. Still, no study has ever pointed to the effect of water flow with the reasonable inherent force for the causes of destruction and possible relief from the recurring woes of the millions of inhabitants on the riverbank and the overall adverse impact on the national economy, especially the prospect of electricity generation from water flow. The agencies involved in such innovative attempts to harness power from water sources would be the Bangladesh Water Development Board, Bangladesh Bridge Authority, municipalities of the towns along the river routes, Land and Water Ministry; and now the Energy Ministry would be added to examine the viability of power generation from River waters in Bangladesh with BPDB, Petrobangla, and SREDA in line. Since the Energy from the water current would be the prime objective and which is a form of primary energy like gas or coal to generate electricity, it would be most appropriate if Petrobangla is entrusted to conduct a feasibility study under carefully drafted Terms of References (ToR) so that probable answers to all the uncertainties and possibilities associated with the concept are available to the decision-makers. The feasibility study for gas supply to the Western Zone in 1990-91 by Petrobangla paved the way for constructing the first-ever multipurpose bridge in the country over river Jamuna at Sirajganj. So there may not be any wrong step in giving the responsibility of the study to Petrobangla. Similarly, depending on the feasibility of the proposed projects, other agencies like BWDB, BIWTA, BPDB, and municipalities may be suitably designated for individual projects that would be associated with getting the best results from and optimum uses of International rivers flowing within the country, Bangladesh.
Mohammad Mosharraf Hossain is a former chairman of Petrobangla and founder chairman of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC)
