The cost of power generated by Barapukuria Thermal Power Plant will increase as Barapukuria Coal Mine Company Ltd (BCMCL) has raised coal price by $21 per tonne from March this year.
Now the mine realises $105 for a tonne of coal supplied to the country's lone coal-based power plant at Barapukuria in Dinajpur.
The decision of raising the coal price came from a recent meeting between officials of BCMCL and Bangladesh Power Development Board, said mine sources.
“The cost for generating power will increase following the rise in coal price,” said Md Monjurul Haque, chief engineer of the power plant.
“The cost would rise to around Tk 5 per kilowatt hour from Tk 4,” he said.
BCMCL, a subsidiary of the state-run Petrobangla, has so far increased the price of coal supplied to the power plant from $60 to $105 per tonne in four phases.
The coal-based power plant, consuming about 2,000 metric tonnes of coal, generates about 170 MW to 180MW of electricity every day against the installation capacity of 250MW, said sources in the plant.
Of the generated power, about 10MW is distributed in the plant area while the remaining power is supplied to the national grid, the sources said.
Private customers of coal would have to pay $136 per tonne following the increased price rate, said BCMCL sources. Earlier, the price was $110 per tonne.
Private consumers including brick kilns consume about 1 million tonnes of coal supplied by the mine, sources said.