Risky and over-subsidized: a financial analysis of the Rampal Power Plant
The Rampal Power Plant is a proposed 1,320-megawatt imported coal-fired power plant promoted by the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited (BIFPCL), a joint venture of the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and India’s largest power producer, NTPC Limited. The project is being designed around outdated supercritical technology and is being heavily subsidised by the Indian and Bangladeshi governments. This report highlights a number of risks to taxpayers and electricity customers as well as to project backers in India—not the least of which is the Indian government itself. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) suspects that the project is being promoted as a means to sell Indian coal to Bangladesh and as a way to skirt Indian policy against building a coal plant so near the Sundarbans, a protected forest and World Heritage Site.