The government has extended the tenures of four rental power projects for more than five years to purchase electricity worth more than Tk100.51bn.
The projects are the 100MW Desh Energy Limited, the Ashuganj Precision Energy Limited, the Shikalbaha Energis Power Corporation Limited – the last two having a capacity of producing 55MW of electricity – and the 50MW plant at Thakurgaon.
The Power Division has also proposed transferring the Powerpac Mutirara Power Plant from Khulna to Keraniganj and setting up a 100MW wind-based plant of Consortium of PIA Group LCC and Bangladesh Alternative Energy Systems Ltd at Anwara in Chittagong.
The proposals were placed at a meeting of the cabinet committee on Thursday on public purchase and approved. Finance Minister AMA Muhith presided over the meeting. The prime minister’s energy Advise Tawfiq-e-Elahi also attended the meeting.
An official of the Power Division said the government had no alternative to extending the rental power projects up to 2018.
The government sent the proposals on the four power projects to the public purchase committee on Sunday, considering their performance level at 80% power factors.
Prof M Tamim, a former special assistant of the last caretaker government, said: “The tariffs of the quick rental power plants will be renegotiated to extend the tenures of these rental power projects, otherwise it will affect the country’s economy.
“I think it will be a controversial decision if the government allows the rental projects under political consideration,” the teacher of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) told the Dhaka Tribune.
A report of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies says the country’s net benefit from the rental power plants added 1.2% to the GDP growth and in the long run the growth may be affected because of the rental power plants – if the government does not establish base plants.
As per the proposal, the 100MW Siddhirganj Desh Energy Limited project – owned by former Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry president Annisul Huq – is likely to get five years’ extension as a reward of the economic benefits from the plant.
The performance efficiency level of the project is 65-70%, but it might get the extension considering its power factor capacity at 80%, the proposal said.
It said the Power Division had fixed the revised power tariff at Tk19.5360 per unit, reducing by only Tk0.0334. The government has a plan to purchase electricity worth Tk68.48bn from diesel-fired power plants.
The government is also going to purchase electricity at Tk15.8312 per unit, a cut in rate by Tk0.1221, from the 55MW Shikalbaha plant, an enterprise of the Jatiya Party Presidium member barrister Anisul Islam Mahmud’s family.
The government will purchase electricity worth Tk19.42bn from the Shikalbaha plant, which is blamed for polluting environment in the area and also causing mechanical faults to a government-owned power project there by emitting smoke. The plant performance efficiency level stands at 55-60%, an official said.
The Power Division will also consider extending the tenure of the gas-fired 55MW Ashuganj Precision Energy Limited for five years. Although the performance of the plant is around 80%, it often fails to add to the national grid because of low-capacity engines.
The power tariff of the plant was revised to Tk2.9128 per unit, a reduction by Tk0.8060. The government has a plan to purchase electricity worth Tk5.61bn from the plant subject to the approval of the purchase committee.
The Consortium of PIA Group LCC and Bangladesh Alternative Energy Systems Ltd will construct the 100MW wind-based power plant at Cox’s Bazar. As per the proposal, the government will make a 20-year contract for buying a unit of electricity at Tk9.87.
Earlier, Petrobangla requested the Power Division not to extend the tenure of the gas-fired rental power project at Ashuganj.
