The New Nation - Internet Edition

Chittagong Bureau

Power crisis here in the region is likely to improve slightly by middle of November this year when the second rental power plant at Shikalbaha in Patiya starts generation.

Informed sources said that nearly 80 per cent of the installation work of the 75-megawatt furnace oil-run power plant had already been finished by now and the rest of the work would be completed by the first week of November.

Messrs Energies Power Corporation, a private company, is implementing the German-origin rental power plant project at an estimated cost of Tk 2600 million. Royce Power, a Hong Kong based firm, is providing technical assistance to the project.

"The plant will go on trial run by first week of November if things are all right," Managing Director of the Energies Power Corporation (EPC), owner of the power plant, Javed Hosein told reporters.

Earlier, Messrs Energies Power Corporation successfully commissioned the region's first rental power plant at Barabkund in June this year. It was 24-megawatt furnace oil-run power plant.

Initiators commissioned the power plant near the Shikalbaha gas turbine power plant in January this year. The Power Development Board (PDB) is learnt to have signed accord to buy 55-megawatt of the plant's generation while the rest will go to a number of industrial units nearby.

Officials at Power Development Board (PDB) speculated modest improvement in total power generation scenario in the region.

"A number of medium scale generation capacity power plants are still needed to address the ever-growing power demand in the region," a top official of the PDB here in the port city commented.