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Gazipur 42.5 MW (Canves) WTE Power Plant

Current Status: Announced

(Image Source: Daily Sun)


Gazipur 42.5 MW WTE Power Plant, also known as Gazipur City Corporation Waste-to-Energy Power Project, is a proposed power plant to be situated in Kaultia area in Gazipur city of Bangladesh (Location: 24.0000, 90.4201). It is an initiative of Gazipur City Corporation (GCC) and to be installed by a Chinese company Canves Environmental Investment Company Limited (CEIC) as a private Independent Power Producer (IPP) for 25 years. As per the schedule, the power plant is to start commercial operation by 30 June 2023 and will retire on 29 June 2048. But there is some uncertainty as the sponsor company is going through an investigation due to allegations of fraud.


Capacity

The proposed installed capacity of Gazipur WTE Power Plant is 35 MW.


Context

The Prime Minister directed the authorities to plan a waste-to-power plant project in 2015 during an Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) meeting. The Power Division took some initiatives to conduct a study on the potential of WTE in Bangladesh. LGRD Ministry proceeded with the initiative in April 2019 and formed a working group in June 2019 for formulating a guideline for a waste to power project. In July 2019, the working group submitted a report with a guideline (Hasan 2019).


Following the guideline, the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) approved the project on 8 December 2021 to purchase generated electricity from the power plant for 25 years under the Quick Enhancement of Electricity and Energy Supply (Special Provisions) Act 2021 (FE 2021a). Subsequently, BPDB issued a Letter of Intent (LOI) on 12 January 2022 as a preliminary commitment to commission the power plant (BPDB 2022).


Land Acquisition

The power plant will be built in the Kaultia neighborhood of Gazipur city, according to the Power Division. As far now the Chinese company said the city corporation will provide the necessary land and wastage.


Finance

The estimated budget of the power plant is UD 450 million (BDT 3,825 crore when USD 1=BDT 85) which will be arranged by the sponsor (FE 2021b). Any name of the potential External Credit Agency (ECA) finance has not been disclosed till date.


Contractors

No contractor for Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) works or the suppliers of incineration technology and equipment have been selected till date.


Fuel Supply

GCC is responsible for supplying 2,500-3,000 tonnes of solid municipal waste (SMW) per day to use as fuel for the power plant (TBS 2021).


Power Generation

According to the LOI, the expected Commercial Operation Date (COD) of the power plant is scheduled as 31 December 2024. (BPDB 2022). BPDB is to buy electricity from the power plant at a rate of USD 0.215 (BDT 18.28) per unit (kilowatt hour) for 20 years from COD (Byron & Hasan 2021). As a result, BPDB will pay at least BDT 14,118 crore (USD 1.66 billion) to the sponsors in its period of operation.


Environment

According to Section 12 of Bangladesh Environment Protection Act 1995, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is obligatory for any industry (MOLJPA 1995). The polluting industries, such as power plants, have to go through an Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) and EIA as directed in the Environmental Conservation Rules 2017 (MOEFCC 1997). But, till date, no IEE or EIA report has been conducted for the power plant.


Carbon Footprint

The life cycle climate change impact (LCCCI) of electricity from WTE facilities ranges from 664g to 951g per kWh (Pfadt-Trilling et al. 2021). According to the estimation, the greenhouse gasses (GHGs) emission from the power plant could be 205.18-293.87 kilo-tonnes per year and 5.13-7.35 million tonnes in its operation period.


Cancellation Risk

To get the contract, CEIC claimed in the submitted documents that it is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Canvest Environmental Protection Group Company Limited (CEPG). But when BPDB wrote to CEPG to validate the experience of the project sponsor, CEPG replied that it has no relationship with CEIC. The evidence has been sent to the Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh to check the authenticity of the documents (Tuhin 2022). According to Google Search, the company was founded only on 23 June 2020.


References




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