Ashuganj’s new power unit adds 420MW to national grid

Commercial production of electricity has started at the Combined Cycle Power Plant in Ashuganj of Brahmanbaria.

A total of 420 MW of power will be generated from the unit per day.

Engineer Abdul Majid, director of the project, said the new plant has been supplying 400MW electricity to the national grid since Saturday night.

The power generation from this plant started on November 15 on an experimental basis.

With this, six units of Ashuganj Power Station Company are currently adding 1,293MW of electricity to the national grid every day, he said.

More electricity will be added to the national grid from some more projects in a few days, reports our Brahmanbaria correspondent quoting the director.

The official also expressed hope that the new plant came in production will help meet the growing demand of electricity in the country.

Managing Director of Ashuganj Power Station Company Limited (APSCL) Engineer MM Sazzadur Rahman told The Daily Star that as part of the government's master plan to produce electricity, Ashuganj was made a "power hub" in 2009.

The authorities have started work to increase the target of power generation to 6,000MW by 2030.

As part of this, the project was approved at the Ecnec meeting on September 22, 2015. The cost for implementing the project was estimated at US$ 180.325 million.

According to the agreement, the Chinese contractor was supposed to complete the work in December 2020. But due to the impact of coronavirus all over the world, the work of this project came to a standstill.

Work resumed after the outbreak and it was possible to produce electricity on trial under the project on June 20 this year.