The state-owned Power Development Board (PDB) yesterday signed a contract with Isolux Ingenieria SA of Spain and Samsung C&T Corporation of South Korea for the construction of 383MW gas-based combined cycle Bibiyana South Power Plant in Habiganj.
The joint venture of Isolux and Samsung will work in the project as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor at a contract value of $288.26m.
It is expected that the project’s simple cycle unit will come into production in December 2016 and the combined cycle unit in June 2017. The PDB, under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources, will implement the project.
Md Zahurul Haque, secretary of PDB; Jose Luis Dago Elorza, general manager of Isolux Ingenieria; and Sung Ki Na, general manager of Samsung C& T Corporation, signed the contract on behalf of their respective sides.
“The government signed the deal with two foreign companies to set up a natural gas-based 383MW combined cycle power plant with the best quality of technology at Bibiyana to mitigate the high demand for electricity,” State Minister for Power Nasrul Hamid said while speaking as the chief guest at the signing ceremony in the city’s Bidyut Bhaban.
Power Division Secretary Monowar Islam, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman AR Khan and PDB Chairman Md Abduhu Ruhullah spoke at the contract signing ceremony as special guests.
“The project cost has been estimated at $322.96m, while the EPC value is $288.26m,” Abduhu Ruhullah said.
The gas-fired combined cycle power plant project’s total net generation capacity will be 383.51MW through its combination of simple cycle and combined cycle units, he said.
Electricity production cost in the project will be Tk1.13 kilowatt per hour (kWh) considering the plant factor at 85%, while the power tariff was estimated to be Tk4.70 per unit. The project’s lifetime has been fixed at 25 years.
The project’s gas turbine, steam turbine, generator and other main equipment will come from Germany, Belgium, the USA, Spain and China. The plant’s energy efficiency is expected to be 53.37%. The power plant will consume around 60 mmcfd gas which will be supplied from the Bibiyana gas field.
The Bibiyana South project’s implementation process started few years back and initially, it was named as Bibiaya-1 and awarded to Summit Group to implement it as an independent power producer (IPP) plant.
For the first time, the government will be using the Energy Development and Maintenance Fund, which was created by introducing an additional amount with the price of electricity to finance this project, to build the plant in place of the cancelled Bibiyana 1 project with Summit Group.