March 1, 2014

The World Bank Board approved USD 600 million in concessional financing to improve the quality of electricity supply in the rural areas in the eastern part of Bangladesh. The Rural Electricity Transmission and Distribution Project aims to reduce system losses and enhance capacity in the electricity network in rural Bangladesh.

The project will reduce technical losses in the rural grid electricity system and will help to ensure that a greater percentage of electricity generated is reached to rural consumers. It will contribute to improve quality and reliability of power supply to 25 million people in rural Bangladesh. The loss reductions targeted under the project will save enough energy to meet the electricity needs of a million people.

Only 42% of the rural population currently has access to electricity in Bangladesh. The project will support new lines and substations as well as upgrade existing lines in the rural areas of Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet divisions. The investments made through the project to reduce system losses will simultaneously augment the capacity of the network to carry more electricity when the power generation constrains are addressed. This will allow the system to connect new rural households to electricity grid in the future.