Orion Power: Powering one era, preparing for the next

Orion's power-generation journey mirrors Bangladesh's changing energy priorities - from the urgency of adding capacity to the growing push for efficiency and renewable power

For much of the last two decades, one of Bangladesh's most pressing economic questions was deceptively simple: where will the next megawatts of electricity come from?

As factories expanded, cities grew and electricity demand climbed, the country had little room for delays. Power shortages were not merely an inconvenience; for industries, they could mean production losses, disrupted supply chains and rising costs.

The response was a rapid expansion of generation capacity.

Orion entered that landscape at a time when speed mattered. Its early power projects were built around a straightforward proposition - put additional capacity into the national grid, and do it quickly.

The first of those projects was Orion Power Meghnaghat Limited, a 100MW heavy fuel oil (HFO)-based plant in Meghnaghat. Built with European engines, machinery and equipment, the plant was completed in just nine months and began supplying electricity to the national grid in May 2011.

The timing was significant. Bangladesh was in the midst of an aggressive effort to expand electricity generation, and private-sector power producers were becoming an increasingly important part of that effort.

Infograph: TBS

Orion soon followed with another 100MW HFO-based plant at Siddhirganj, Narayanganj, through Dutch-Bangla Power & Associates Limited. Once again, the project was completed in nine months. Equipped with Wartsila machinery and equipment, the plant began regular supply to the national grid in July 2011.

Two plants, 200MW of combined capacity and a construction timeline measured in months rather than years.

It set the tone for Orion's early years in the power sector.

Following the industrial belt

The next addition came at Gognagar in Narayanganj.

Digital Power & Associates Limited developed a 102MW HFO-based power plant there under a 15-year independent power producer arrangement awarded by the Government of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Power Development Board.

The plant began operating in June 2014, again using new European equipment from Wartsila.

The location was hardly incidental.

Narayanganj has long been one of the country's major industrial centres, with textiles, manufacturing and other businesses dependent on reliable electricity. For an economy trying to industrialise, generation capacity close to major centres of demand carried an importance beyond the number of megawatts on paper.

Photo: Collected

The plant was subsequently recognised as one of the country's more efficient fuel-based power plants.

By then, Orion's power business was no longer a single-project venture. It was becoming a generation portfolio.

And the portfolio was beginning to move beyond Narayanganj.

Taking the grid south

In Khulna, Orion Power Rupsha Limited brought another 105MW into the system.

The HFO-based independent power plant sits near the Rupsha River on roughly 10 acres and uses new machinery and equipment supplied by Wartsila OY of Finland.

It entered commercial operation on 14 October 2018 and has remained connected to the national grid since then.

The Rupsha project came at a different point in Bangladesh's electricity story. The country had added substantial generation capacity, but the conversation around power was becoming more complicated.

Capacity alone was no longer the only concern.

The cost of fuel mattered. The efficiency of plants mattered. The reliability of supply mattered. And as global energy markets became increasingly volatile, the question of how Bangladesh could secure the energy needed for continued economic growth became harder to ignore.

Orion's next project would address at least one of those concerns through a different approach to efficiency.

Getting more from the fuel

Orion Power Sonargaon Limited began commercial operation in June 2020 at Meghnaghat, Narayanganj.

The 104MW HFO-based plant is equipped with six W18V50 Wartsila engines. But one feature stands out: the plant has additional power-generating capability using waste heat.

The principle is straightforward. Instead of allowing heat generated during the production process to go unused, it can be recovered and put towards additional power generation.

In a fuel-intensive power sector, that matters.

For Bangladesh, where generation costs are closely tied to fuel prices and energy imports, squeezing greater output from the same generation process is not simply a technical achievement. It is an economic consideration.

The Sonargaon project was formally inaugurated in 2021, but by then another shift was already underway in the wider energy sector.

The conversation was beginning to move beyond how much electricity Bangladesh could generate.

It was increasingly about what kind of electricity Bangladesh should generate.

Then the sun entered the picture

The most striking change in Orion's power portfolio came in Bagerhat.

Energon Renewables (BD) Limited developed a 100MW AC solar power plant there, which became operational in December 2021.

For Orion, this represented a clear departure from the HFO plants that had defined much of its earlier generation portfolio.

There were no fuel tanks or conventional engines at the centre of the project. Instead, the plant relies on sunlight captured through high-efficiency monocrystalline solar panels using PERC technology, supplied by LONGi Solar Technology of China.

The scale matters.

A 100MW utility-scale solar project is a very different proposition from rooftop panels or small solar installations. It represents a move towards renewable energy as part of the country's mainstream generation mix.

The environmental calculation is also significant. According to Orion, the project is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 100,000 tonnes each year.

The Bagerhat project therefore marks more than the addition of another 100MW to the grid.

It signals how the energy equation has changed.

A different energy question

Bangladesh's power sector has travelled a long way since the days when the priority was simply to keep generation ahead of demand.

The country now has to manage a more complicated balancing act: keeping electricity affordable while ensuring reliable supply, managing fuel costs and import dependence, improving generation efficiency and increasing the contribution of renewable sources.

Those challenges cannot be solved by one technology alone.

HFO-based plants remain part of the country's generation landscape. At the same time, solar and other renewable technologies are becoming increasingly relevant as Bangladesh looks for ways to diversify its energy mix.

Orion's own portfolio reflects that transition.

Its early plants at Meghnaghat and Siddhirganj were built with urgency. Digital Power added another 102MW in Narayanganj. Rupsha extended the group's generation footprint into Khulna. Sonargaon brought another 104MW while incorporating waste-heat utilisation.

Then Bagerhat changed the picture.

The progression from fuel-based engines to solar panels is not a straight replacement of one technology by another. It is a reflection of a power system becoming more diverse as its requirements become more complex.

For Orion, that has meant expanding from a handful of conventional generation projects into a portfolio that now includes renewable energy.

For Bangladesh, the stakes are much larger.

Electricity is no longer simply an infrastructure requirement. It is the foundation on which factories operate, businesses expand and digital services function. As the economy grows, demand for dependable power will only become more important.

The challenge is to meet that demand without making the energy system increasingly vulnerable to fuel-price shocks, supply disruptions and environmental pressures.

That makes the next phase of Bangladesh's power story less about a race to build the largest number of plants and more about building a generation system that can withstand the pressures ahead.

Orion's journey offers a snapshot of that transition.

It began with a country asking for more electricity, and power plants being built in months to meet the urgency of the moment.

It has moved towards a more complicated question - how to produce that electricity more efficiently, diversify its sources and gradually make room for cleaner generation.

In that sense, the distance between Orion's first Meghnaghat engines and its solar panels in Bagerhat is more than a geographical one.

It is a measure of how Bangladesh's energy story itself has changed.