Tk 190m PDB scheme to ready master plan for Maheshkhali

To make Maheshkhali island a power hub, Power Development Board has taken up a Tk 189.5 million project to prepare a master plan, according to Power Division officials.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid will sit with the power sector officials today (Thursday) to discuss the master plan at his office.
However, old electricity hubs-- Ghorasal and Ashuganj-- and the proposed new one at Moheshkhali will come up for discussion.
"Our plan is to generate 24,000 megawatt (MW) of electricity by 2021 and 40,000 MW by 2030 and we have confidence in our 'power soldiers' who proved their capability through generating 13,000 (plus) MW in five years," Nasrul Hamid told the Daily Observer.
The Awami League-led government has embarked on a comprehensive plan to set up two power plants with a combined capacity of 9,000 MW at Maheshkhali island, in an effort to achieve the monumental task of ensuring electricity for country's total 161 million people by 2021.
The Power Ministry has acquired about 5,000 acres of land at the island in the Bay of Bengal in this connection.
Ghorasal was established in the 60s to generate around 200 to 300 MW and gradually it introduced six units there. In the 80s, the Power Division once again identified another site--Ashuganj-- to make a hub for meeting the growing demand of
electricity.
Nowadays the old machines are to be either renovated or replaced from there and a fresh one to be introduced to add more electricity to the grid and stop wastage of energy of these power plants as all are age-old, according to the Power Division.
PDB will work in assistance with international donor agencies to construct those power stations of 6,000 MW capacity coal-based and 3,000 MW liquefied natural gas or LNG-based power plants on 5,000 acres of land at Maheshkhali.
After taking power in 2008, the government planned  generation of 50 per cent of the country's total electricity supply from coal-fired plants by 2030, shifting from its major power generation source -- natural gas, which currently accounted for more than 80 per cent power generation.