According to official sources, each of the plants will have 50 MW capacity, for a total contribution of 150 MW wind power to the national electricity generation capacity.
Official sources at the Power Division said the locations of the three wind power plants, selected on the basis of “wind mapping”, will be Chandpur, Inani Beach of Cox’s Bazar and Dacope upazila of Khulna.
A senior official at the Power Division said the government conducted the wind mapping exercise with the financial support of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
“The wind mapping was done at 9 locations where wind speed was found to be favourable for installation of wind power plants,” said Mohammad Alauddin, joint secretary in-charge of renewable energy at the Power Division, told UNB.
He said that different data collected through the wind mapping suggests that wind power plants will be feasible for these locations.
“But initially the three locations were selected as the collected data of wind speed and velocity appear very supportive for power generation,” he said.
Officials said a wind power plant needs a stable wind with minimum speed of 5 meters per second. Windspeed at the 3 locations was found to exceed that.
They said a number of wind towers with turbines will be installed in each of the plants. Each of the turbines’ power generation capacity will be between 5-7 MW.
Sources said the state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) will implement the wind power plant project through independent power producer (IPP).
They said the PDB officials already prepared the document to float tender to invite experienced international private sponsors to implement the projects.
A proposal in this regard awaiting approval of the PDB Board which is expected to be placed in the board meeting of the organisation within a week or two, said an official.
About the possible power tariff of the wind power plant, he said, as per the study, the tariff of each kilowatt of hour of electricity might be US 10-12 Cents which is equivalent to Tk 8-9.
Officials said the government’s move for wind power plant is part of its energy related strategy adopted in the Power System Master Plan where it was stated 10 percent of the country’s total power generation will come from renewable sources.
Wind power generation is one of the renewable options yet to be tapped into by the government in Bangladesh. Sources do recall however a previous attempt when the government had earlier moved to implement a 100 MW wind power in the offshore areas about 8 years ago.
“But that project has not been implemented yet due to failure of the bidder,” said an official adding that later the government awarded a contract to an Indian consortium to set up a 30 MW wind power plant in Sonagazi upazila of Feni district.
The government has already issued Letter of Intent (LoI) to a consortium of Bhagwati Products Ltd (India), Regen Powertech Provate Ltd (India) Siddhant Wind Energy Pvt Ltd, noted the Power Division official.