US Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with the World Bank is likely to come up with a major role to provide cooperation in the country’s energy sector aimed at improving efficiency. According official sources, a 4-member high-level team from the American state department visited the country last week and held a workshop for top level power and energy sector officials to identify the scope of cooperation. A top official of the Power Ministry said that the team stayed in Dhaka from November 24-26 and had discussions with senior executives in the power and energy sector. He said that through the workshop and discussions two major areas of investment were identified for energy efficiency improvement in the public and private sectors. These are conversion of simple cycle power plants to combined cycle ones, along with rehabilitation of fertilizer factories in public sector; and improvement of competency of captive power plants and boilers in different textiles, steel mills and dying factories in the private sector. “If the simple cycle power plants are converted into combined cycles, their efficiency will increase by additional power generation of nearly 300 MW,” said a top official at power ministry who is closely working with the matter. He also noted that there are about 2,200 MW-generating captive power plants at different private textiles, steel mills and dying factories across the country. The gas-fired captive plants are now running on only 20 percent efficiency. Similarly, more than a thousand boilers are now running at different factories with very low efficiency. “But if their exhausted heat is captured and utilized in proper way through efficient technology, their efficiency level is possible to be enhanced to even 90 percent from 20 percent,” said the official adding that co-generation method could be applied for the purpose. Additional Secretary of the Power Ministry Tapos Kumar Roy admitted the USAID team’s recent visit and said they have collected data on potential areas of their technical support and investment. “We hope the USAID team will again visit in February or March next year to finalise their plan about energy efficiency improvement projects,” he told UNB. Officials said the American donor agency’s move for sustainable energy has been in line with the United Nation Secretary General’s special initiative for “sustainable energy for all (SE4All)” programme. Earlier, another high profile delegation led by US Deputy Assistant Secretary Dr Robert Ichord visited the country with the same purpose of extending cooperation in sustainable energy projects. “The recent visit of the USAID team is a follow-up of the previous visit by the high-profile delegation,” said another official. He said the World Bank will be a partner to the USAID initiative in the sustainable energy. The World Bank will provide soft loans or concessional loans. – UNB
