A Probabilistic Analysis of Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for Bangladesh

Abstract

Energy crisis is one of the major problem for Bangladesh to eradicate extreme poverty and achieve middle-income status. Electricity production in Bangladesh is mostly from conventional energy sources like fossil fuels and natural gas. Experiencing huge shortage of electricity and realizing the future energy demand of the country, the government of Bangladesh is going to install a nuclear power plant for the large scale (2.4 GW) electricity production. A comparative study is conducted in this paper to observe the levelized cost of energy scenario for several electricity generating technologies. The present calculation is done using the LCOE simulator. From the simulation results, it is found that the distribution of levelized bus bar costs for the nuclear power plant is in the range of 11.69-17.84 cents/kWh, with a most probable value of about 14.75 cents/kWh; for coal-fired plants the corresponding values are 15.56–19.90 cents/kWh and 17.73 cents/kWh and for the combined cycle gas power plant the corresponding values are in the range of 15.90-17.30 cents/kWh and a most probable value of about 16.60 cents/kWh. Comparing the results from different technologies, it is worth saying that nuclear power plant is the best option for large scale (2.4 GW) power production for a developing country like Bangladesh.