February 22: A team of Nepal Electricity Authority has reached Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to finalize the export of 40 megawatts of electricity to Bangladesh from the upcoming monsoon season.

The delegation led by NEA Executive Director Kulman Ghising, left for Dhaka on Wednesday. The team will fix the price of electricity to be exported to Bangladesh.

According to NEA sources, there will be a bilateral talks between the Energy Secretary of Bangladesh and the NEA team in Dhaka. The executive director of the authority Ghising said that preparations have been made to export electricity from Nepal to Bangladesh from the upcoming monsoon season. Before leaving for Bangladesh, Ghising told reporters that most of the technical work for electricity export has reached the final stage.

Bangladesh has already called for tenders to purchase electricity from Nepal. With Bangladesh calling for bids, the NEA has proposed to provide electricity from Rs 8.96 to Rs 9.28 per unit. The NEA team went to Dhaka to finalize the proposal through mutual agreement.

The Council of Ministers of Bangladesh last month gave in-principle approval to the proposal to import electricity from Nepal. India has agreed to allow 40 MW of electricity to be sent from Nepal to Bangladesh through the Muzaffarpur 400 KV transmission line. NEA said that Bangladesh will bear the wheeling charges incurred when exporting electricity to Bangladesh using the Indian transmission lines.

The proposal prepared by the NEA also offers a discount if Bangladesh makes the payment soon. The NEA has set a condition that the payment for the electricity exported from Nepal should be made within 45 days. The authority has proposed to give a certain discount if the payment is made within 7 days of issuing the bill.

Quoting Bangladeshi energy experts, the Daily Observer newspaper published from Bangladesh has written that the rate offered by the NEA to Bangladesh is expensive. Bangladeshi energy experts argue that there is a possibility that more energy can be imported from Nepal in the future, and since the agreement with Nepal is the first, its provisions will become a precedent for the tariff negotiations of every future project.

Bangladesh is currently producing electricity from coal and diesel power plants. The price of diesel and coal has been increasing of late and pollution is also increasing in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is also under pressure to reduce environmental pollution. It has no other option but to close diesel and coal-based power plants. Due to lack of sufficient land, the possibility of solar energy production is also low. Therefore, Bangladesh has to import electricity from other countries. Currently, Bangladesh's total electricity demand is about 25,000 MW. Bangladesh aims to buy 10,000 megawatts of electricity from neighboring countries by 2040 to meet its domestic demand.

To meet its demand, Bangladesh is planning to import electricity from Nepal by constructing the 683 MW Sunkoshi III hydropower project with joint investment. Dhaka has also expressed its willingness to enter into an agreement for the purchase of 500 MW of electricity from the 900 MW Upper Karnali Hydropower Project.