Bangladesh-China Power Company Limited (BCPCL), a joint venture of North West Power Generation Company Ltd (NWPGCL) and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC), is going to implement renewable energy projects with a target to generate 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity across the country by 2023.

As part of the initiative, they signed a joint-venture agreement to form a company named Bangladesh-China Power Company Ltd (Renewable) on Tuesday.

In the newly formed joint venture, NWPGCL and CMC will be investing equal amounts of capital. The authorised capital of the joint-venture company is Tk1,000 crore while the paid-up capital is Tk16 crore.

Apart from these, solar and wind plants having 165MW capacity will be implemented in different areas of the country which are yet to be finalised.

State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said the planned projects will help the government meet the target to generate 10 percent of energy from renewable sources.

In his speech as the chief guest during the contract signing ceremony, Nasrul said, “The government has introduced the net-metering system to patronise the generation and distribution of renewable energy.”

“Test Relief and Kabikha programmes are there to spread the solar home system. Such incentives will be continued to increase the use of renewable energy in the country.”

Among others, Principal Secretary to the prime minister Dr Ahmad Kaikaus and Chinese Ambassador to Dhaka Li Jiming spoke as special guests.

Chief Executive Officer of NWPGCL Engineer AM Khurshedul Alam and Chairman of CMC Ruan Guang were present while Power Division Secretary Dr Sultan Ahmed presided over the programme.

NWPGCL is one of the public power generation companies which now has six power plants with a capacity to generate 1510MW of electricity.

It is also implementing the country’s biggest coal-fired power plant, Payra 1,320MW thermal power plant in Payra.