The country's largest independent power plant (IPP), the Summit Bibiyana II having a generating capacity around 341 megawatts (MW) of electricity, has started commercial production.
Summit Bibiyana II Power Company Limited (SBIIPCL), a company owned by Summit Corporation Ltd and General Electric (GE) of the USA having 80 per cent and 20 per cent stakes respectively, has implemented the power plant project, a company insider said.
The power plant is located at Parkul village in Nabiganj upazila of Habiganj district, some 180 kilometres northeast of Dhaka.
Multilateral donor agencies — Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Islamic Development Bank (IDB) — provided US$ 210 million to implement the project.
This is the largest amount of direct loan given to any Bangladeshi private sector project by any of the three development agencies. It is the largest project finance transactions carried out by a privately-owned local company. The loan repayment period is approximately 14 years.
"This is a dream which has come true," Summit Group Chairman Muhammed Aziz Khan told the FE Saturday.
He, however, said they faced two major problems to implement the project - one is getting required land as committed by the government and another is securing loan from the World Bank (WB) Group following 'bitter' relationship between the government and the WB over the construction of Padma Bridge.
Pointing to his Group's future plan he said, 'Summit is keen to make more investments in the energy sector as a whole to help meet the country's mounting primary energy demand."
"We are also thinking of having long term partnership with IFC, ADB and GE," Mr Khan added.
The Summit-GE consortium was awarded the project work by state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and the government following a competitive bidding.
It inked power purchase agreement (PPA), gas supply agreement (GSA), implementation agreement (IA) and land lease agreement (LLA) with the BPDB and the government and their line agencies on May 12, 2011.
The BPDB has been purchasing electricity at a levelised tariff of US cents 3.3972 per unit (1 kilowatt-hour) from the power plant.
A consortium of the First Northeast Electric Power Engineering Corporation of China Energy Engineering Group (NEPC) and China Energy Engineering Group Co Ltd (CEEC) built the power plant as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor.
The power plant has been implemented on build, own and operate (BOO) basis pursuant to a 22-year implementation agreement. It is consuming around 50 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of natural gas to generate electricity.
Requirement of water for the project is being met from the River Kushiyara.
Electricity generated from the Bibiyana II power plant project having 400 kilovolt (kV) is being evacuated through 230 kV transmission line.
The Bibiyana II power plant project achieved simple cycle commercial operation date on June 06, 2015 and combined cycle operation date on December 26, 2015.
The plant deploys heavy-duty 9FA gas turbine from General Electric USA, and combines natural gas-fired turbine with a steam turbine to reuse the fuel, said a senior Summit official.
The exhaust heat from the gas turbine is captured by heat recovery steam turbine generator to generate high-quality high pressure (HP), intermediate pressure (IP) and low pressure (LP) steam which in turn powers the steam turbine to enhance overall plant efficiency, he added.
When contacted, a senior BPDB official said the operation of the Bibiyana II 341 MW power plant would help meet the country's mounting electricity demand.
It would also help reduce the overall electricity generation costs as it is a gas-fired power plant, he added.
Country's average electricity generation is currently hovering around 7,500 MW.
mazizur.rahman@outlook.com [Read More]

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Source: The Financial Express