Siddhirganj Peaking Power Project

“Bangladesh has a severe shortage of generation at peak periods,” said Alan Townsend, Senior Energy Specialist. “Like many other developing countries with large populations and high household demand, Bangladesh has a “peaky” load curve, with dramatic upswings in demand during the late afternoon and evening period, followed by a rapid drop after 11:00 pm.”

In addition, the sector is financially weak, access to capital is severely constrained, and prices do not cover costs - all factors that have hampered the power sector’s ability to meet growing demand for electricity.

To address this urgent challenge, the World Bank is financing the Siddhirganj Peaking Power Project to build a 300 MW gas turbine power plant at Siddhirganj, an existing power generation site to the southeast of Dhaka.

“Bangladesh is now in the midst of a serious power crisis,” said Xian Zhu, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh. “Power generation has failed to keep pace with demand, and, in the last two years, increasing shortages of natural gas, the primary fuel used in power generation, have added to the sector’s problems. This project will make a major contribution to meeting peak demand for power.”

The project will also finance a 60 km natural gas pipeline from Bakhrabad to Siddhirganj that will improve the reliability of gas supply to Siddhirganj and certain other power plant sites, and an 11 km electricity transmission line so that power from the plant can be distributed to consumers.

The project builds on the World Bank Group’s long history of involvement in the energy sector including support to the successful Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development program. This program has helped bring power to hundreds of thousands of consumers in Bangladesh, both through grid connections and via solar home systems. At the core of the grid extension effort is a successful partnership between the Rural Electrification Board and the rural electricity cooperatives which ensures the efficient and reliable delivery of rural electricity.

“The cooperatives have proven to be effective at quickly rehabilitating systems, reducing system losses, and substantially curbing power theft,” said Townsend.

Results on the Ground

With more households, businesses, and farmers connected to the grid, the electrification program had made positive impact on the rural economy. Farmers say that now with electricity to run their ground pumps, they are irrigating at a faster and more efficient pace, and that the process costs them less than when they used diesel and oil operated pumps.

Azimullah Hussain is the owner of a textile factory and until recently, his looms were operated by hand. “Thanks to electricity, our power loom industry is able to produce a good quality cloth, which is better than the hand loom product. Production costs are lower also, and we get a good profit.”

As it is not feasible to bring the whole country under a grid based electricity network, some 300,000 consumers have been provided with Solar Home Systems. These households would have never received electricity if only conventional electrification methods had been used.

Thanks to the solar home program, Monowara Begum recently got electricity in her house. “It was a very difficult time. After night fall, it was dark everywhere, no light, we could hardly procure oil or kerosene to burn lamp. During the rainy season, kerosene was not available, but now we have plenty of light at a cheaper rate. Poor people are happy.”

Townsend said future expansion of rural electrification, however, depends on the addition of more generation capacity – such as that provided by the Siddhirganj project.