The Bangladesh Power Development Board has again extended the deadlines for its three tenders floated to build solar power plants with capacities between 10MW and 100MW as no proposals have so far been received from potential investors.
The three tenders were floated in phases starting from December last year.
The deadline for the first tender floated in December has recently seen its second extension, while the deadlines of the rest two floated early this year saw their first extension.
鈥楨ligibility criteria would be further relaxed to attract investors,鈥� said Golam Mortuza, a BPDB official in charge of the tenders.
The deadline of the first tender, floated on December 5 to build solar power plants with a capacity between 10MW and 45MW, has now been extended to April 8. The tender that announced 12 packages with specific locations saw tender documents to be bought by 73 entities none of whom submitted any proposals.
The second tender, announced early January, was supposed to expire on March 10, now has been extended to April 10, said Mortuza.
The second one that specified seven locations invited proposals for building 10 solar power plants with 50MW capacity.
The third tender, given on January 27, announced 19 packages with capacities between 70MW and 100MW in 13 specific locations. Its original deadline of March 31 has now been extended to April 30.
Mortuza said that they received no offer in any of the three tenders so far.
Bangladesh鈥檚 current installed power generation capacity is 27,884.7MW of which renewable energy accounts for merely over 993MW.
Unfavourable and discriminatory financing mechanisms held back renewable energy progress during the immediate past Awami League regime, marked by rapid fossil fuel expansion without any bidding under an indemnity law.
After the overthrow of the Awami government by a student-led uprising in July-August last year, the interim government cancelled all 31 renewable energy projects worth over 2,600MW as they were unsolicited. The cancelled projects included some prominent global investors.
The PDB officials and energy experts believe that the cancellation of the projects which were just a step away from signing the power purchase agreement between the government and the investors eroded investors鈥� trust, particularly until a fresh political government settles down.
A stable political government is unlikely to emerge until the end of the next year with a substantial amount of uncertainty looming over the next national election.
Only four renewable energy projects are currently under construction, scheduled to come online this year, with a capacity of about 100MW.
Energy experts and investors initially described that the tenders were designed to facilitate past Awami-era investors, big companies and foreign investors with their discriminatory eligibility criteria.
Initially, tenders required applicants, which could be individual firms or joint venture or consortium or association, to have experience in successfully implementing two ground-mounted grid-tied solar projects, each with a minimum capacity of 20MW.
One of the solar projects would have to be implemented outside the tenderer鈥檚 country, as shown in the tender document.
鈥楨ven amended eligibility requirement does not encourage local investors much,鈥� said BD Rahmatullah, a former director general of the Power Cell, a regulatory agency under the power ministry.
According to the last amendment of the first tender, he said, potential investors were required to have experience in building, owning, operating and then transferring grid-tied power plants worth 10MW.