Power Division has stepped to extend another costly dual-fuel power plant having 110 megawatt capacity near Dhaka by one year as the project expired on October 7, 2013.
Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) requested the Power Division to extend the project tenure by a year from June 23, 2014 considering the country’s electricity demand.
The Division will place a proposal regarding this before the cabinet committee on public purchase soon, according to official sources.
Malaysia-based NEPC Consortium Power Ltd is implementing the project. It has been supplying electricity to Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) since October 10, 2000 under an unsolicited deal.
The government will pay Tk1,224 crore including fuel cost to procure electricity from the power plant during the extended period, the proposal said, adding that the government would be able to save Tk172 crore subject to extension of the project tenure.
The project was gas-fired till 2010 and was later converted to HFO-fired.
After expiry of the power purchase deal with the power plant sponsor in October last year, the government requested the plant authority to continue power generation.
The government will purchase per unit of electricity from the power project at Tk15.8591, excluding fuel cost at Tk13.6625.
In 1997 it made a deal to procure per unit of electricity from the project at Tk18.0958 that also included fuel cost at Tk15.3249.
Meanwhile, the representatives of several rental power companies alleged that the NEPC would get more government favour than other HFO-fired projects.
The Power Division earlier tried to purchase per unit of electricity from NEPC at Tk15.15 but now it agreed on buying electricity as per the company’s proposal.
BPDB recently proposed to extend the tenure of 53MW United Ashuganj Rental Power Project by five years and agreed to purchase electricity from it at Tk3.2848 per unit.
The tenure of the project expired on June 21, 2014. BPDB had signed a power purchase deal with the company on December 23, 2010.
During its previous tenure, the gas-fired rental power project supplied electricity to the BPDB at Tk5.012 per unit, which was Tk 1.7272 higher than its present revised rate.
The gas-fired power project consumes 12 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) gas, the BPDB said.
The extension of rental and quick rental power projects has resulted in an increase in power subsidy to Tk7,000 crore this fiscal from Tk6,000 crore last fiscal.
The government in mid of June 2014 allowed a tariff discount of $2.5m for two gas-fired rental power plants owned by Aggreko International Limited and is also approved to increase electricity generation capacity by 30MW.
The cabinet committee on public purchase extended the tenure of the power projects for four years.
The government in February extended tenures of two rental power projects having capacity to generate 128.5MW of electricity by five years each. The projects are 50MW DAP power and 78.5MW Max power.
The tenures of nine rental power projects were extended during the previous tenure of the Awami League government.
The Power Division claimed that they could save Tk2635.28 crore by extending the tenures of nine rental and quick rental power projects by five years as the power purchase r
ates were adjusted downward from the producers.
The Power Division favoured the costly rental and quick rental power projects considering the delay of based load power projects, concerned officials said.
The BPDB proposal said it would face power crisis during FY2019-20 if the government would not allow it.
