Tripura targets to scale up power generation for expansion of trade with Bangladesh

Agartala/IBNS/UNI: The Tripura government mulls a multipronged strategy to scale up power generation in the state, keeping an eye on the growing demand in Bangladesh, said Power Minister Ratan Lal Nath.

As per the power sell agreement, Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd (TSECL) has been trading 100 MW of power to Bangladesh since 2016 through the Suryamaninagar grid of Agartala to the Brahmanbaria grid of Bangladesh from its share and is planning to increase the volume of supply to the neighbouring country.

“Bangladesh is grappling with a shortage of around 1,400 MW powers where Tripura has a scope to increase the volume of existing supply if we can improve our production capacity at a decent scale,” Nath said, adding that Tripura is mostly producing clean energy from natural gas and now attempted to produce power from non-conventional sources.

While contemplating generating power from renewable sources of energy, Nath said the study suggested that the consumption of power in Tripura would touch at least 700 MW by 2030–31, even if the commercial and industrial requirements don’t increase much, although it is most unlikely in the present situation.

According to sources, Tripura is producing about 115 MW of power from all three generating stations, including a hydroelectric project.

It is also getting a supply of around 150 MW from ONGC Tripura Power Company (OPTC) and 92 MW from the Monarchak plant run by NEEPCO against the peak hour demand of 240 MW for 9.33 lakh consumers, except for high summer days and festival seasons.

Despite having compatible infrastructure and investment, both OTPC and NEEPCO were unable to generate power at their full capacity because of an inadequate supply of gas from ONGC since the beginning.

The OTPC plant is now producing only 550 MW out of its generation capacity of 726 MW, while NEEPCO has been producing around 95 MW from the Monarchak project against its production capacity of 101 MW, official sources claimed.

“Tripura was supposed to get 198 MW of power from OTPC and 98 MW from the Monarchak plant if they could generate power to its full capacity. As a result, the state share of power from the projects has been proportionately reduced, and sometimes TSECL has to buy power from outside at a high rate to fulfil the export commitment to Bangladesh when production falls,” officials said.