Staff Reporter:
With just ten months left to meet the July 2024 deadline set for commencing the operation of the 1200 MW first unit of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP), officials in the power sector are flagging concerns over severe lacks witnessed in implementing the essential transmission infrastructure-related projects.
Provided the power plant remains on track for the stated deadline, officials are now looking at upto a year, maybe even a bit more than that, before the first of its two units – each 1200 MW – as planned, can be commissioned.
Sources at both the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) and the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) said that even if the power plant itself is ready by July next year, it would be ren-dered useless by the lack of requisite transmission lines to carry the power generated at the plant to households or other establishments across the country.
The BAEC is entrusted with the implementation of the country’s maiden nuclear power project while PGCB is responsible for power evacuation and transmission from power plants. This is the first time they are involved in transmission of power generated at a nuclear power plant.
“We’ve been facing three major challenges in completing our preparation for power transmission from the RNPP project,” a highly-placed source at PGCB told , requesting anonymity.
The three challenges he named are construction of river crossing lines, setting up substations, and fre-quency adjustment.
The senior official said the power transmission lines require two river crossings—9-km over the Jamuna River and 7-km over the Padma.
Separate projects have been undertaken by PGCB recently in this regard, and it will take at least two years to complete the projects,” he maintained.
The source explained that the electricity from the RNPP will come to Dhaka through a 400 kV transmis-sion double circuit line, which will be connected with a new 230/132kV grid-substation in Dhamrai.
Recently a firm was awarded the contract to install the transmission line, and its work is still in the pre-liminary phase. The project is expected to take around 2 years to be completed, pushing the readiness of transmission infrastructure deep into 2025.
