The technical team of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) has recommended increasing the price of electricity by 57.83 percent.
The recommendation was made at a public hearing at the Biam Foundation auditorium in the capital on Wednesday (May 18).
The Power Development Board (PDB) has proposed an increase of 57.83 percent as against the proposal of 65.57 percent.
PDB proposes to increase the wholesale rate by Tk 3.39 per unit. On the other hand, the technical team recommended an increase of Tk 2.99 against the proposal.
BERC last fixed the wholesale price of electricity at Tk 5.17 per unit in February 2020.
BPDB’s proposal to increase the wholesale price has said that the cost of producing electricity from oil has gone up due to the non-availability of gas supply as per the demand. The average production cost of electricity was Tk 2.13 in FY 2019-20 and increased to Tk 3.16 in FY 2020-21.
The cost of power generation per unit will stand at Tk 4.24 in 2022 due to an increase in fuel oil price and coal VAT. If the wholesale price does not increase, BPDB will lose 30 thousand 251 crores and 80 lakh taka in 2022.