The Cabinet Purchase Committee is set to consider in its Sunday’s meeting a number of proposals, including the extension of power purchase deals with two rental and quick rental power plants.
The two power plants are DPA Power Generation’s 50 MW diesel-fired quick rental plant at Pagla in Narayanganj and Max Power’s 78.5 MW rental power plant at Ghorarsal.
Official sources said Max Power’s 3-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the state-owned Power Development Board’s expires on May 26 this year while DPA’s 3-year agreement already expired in November last year.
The PDB has been purchasing each unit of electricity from the Max Power’s gas-fired 78.5 MW plant at Tk 5.41 per unit against about Tk 2 per unit (each kilowatt hour) of the gas-fired state-owned power plant’s production cost.
On the other hand, the Bangladesh Army-operated DPA’s diesel-fired 50 MW plant was selling electricity at Tk 13.96 per unit to the PDB.
Power Division officials said the delay in setting up of base-load large power plant has prompted them to go for extending the contracts of the two rental plants for another five (5) years.
Earlier, the government extended the agreement of a number of rental and quick rental power plants last year, which drew strong criticism from the power sector experts who blamed the rental plants as the main reason for rising power tariff.
The other proposals, which were enlisted in the agenda of the meeting, include Rural Electrification Board’s procurement of 35 power transformers, raising the cost of Padma Bridge project’s construction yard, appointment of a consultant for Upazila ICT Training and Research project, import of crude oil from Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, and dredging work for different rivers.
Source: UNBConnect
