Fund for state owned power plants on the card

Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) is to form a separate fund for maintenance of the state owned power plants as Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) failed to do so due to huge power demand and financial constraint.
BPDB needed a Taka 300 crore to 400 crore annually to maintain power plants in the country.
“We are planning to form this fund through our executive authority as we want to ensure the maintenance job of BPDB power plants so that it could produce adequate amount of power in its life span,” BERC Chairman Yusuf Hossain told the news agency.
The BPDB is producing 3800-4200 MW power from 55 units of its 19 power plants.
Yusuf said the BERC will form this fund from a portion of power tariff (when the commission will increase the tariff) and will direct the BPDB to strictly maintain the maintenance schedule as per requirement.
“It will be similar as Energy Development Fund,” he added.
According to the BPDB the installed capacity of BPDB is 6500 MW and the de-rated capacity is 5800 MW out of it 1000 MW is not in operation as it requires maintenance.
The BERC chairman told the news agency that the state run power generation authority is not maintaining the maintenance schedule of any power plant due to power demand and fund constraint.
“BPDB failed to maintain the chart as most of its base-load power plants are 30 to 40 years old. To meet the huge demand it asked to be operative in all time,” BERC chairman said.
Former adviser and a Buet Prof Dr M Tamim said it is mandatory for a power plant to go for maintenance after 50,000 hours.
“There are many plants those are to go for maintenance though it already running 1,50,000 hours,” a BPDB official said.
He said due to this the life-span of a plant became short and it produced less than its capacity. We have no way to address the issue as we always asked to go for operation, he added.