Bangladesh’s largest solar plant due online next month

Bangladesh’s largest solar power plant, a 100 MW project, is set to come online, giving a big boost to the country’s renewable energy portfolio.

The power plant, in the Mongla borough, or upazila, of the Bagerhat district in southwestern Bangladesh, will start supplying electricity to the grid next month.

Energon Renewables (BD) Ltd, a subsidiary of Bangladeshi industrial conglomerate Orion Group, has set up the 280-acre project at a cost of $143 million.

Some 250,000 Longi Solar Hi-MO5 modules were used in the project, according to MM Ahsan Huda, country manager of the Chinese PV manufacturer. Project manager Mehedi Islam Aneek said Switzerland-based ABB supplied all the other electrical equipment, including an automated monitoring and control system, weather monitoring station, transformers, ring main units, and a 33/132 kV substation.

Aneek said the project will be connected to the grid within a week and grid-connection testing will then begin. “The commercial operation of the power plant will be started in December,” he added.

Energon constructed the project on a build, own, operate basis and it will supply electricity to the Bangladesh Power Development Board under a 20-year power purchase agreement. No details of the price to be paid for the solar electricity have been announced.

Bangladesh hosts 776.37 MW of renewable energy generation capacity and expects to reach 1 GW next month. The nation has committed to having 4.1 GW of clean power capacity this decade under the terms of a more ambitious ‘nationally-determined contribution' which was put forward at the recent COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow.