Rental plant starts 17 months after time

After 17 months of delay, local company Precision Energy Limited (PEL) at last began commercial power generation from its 55-megawatt gas fired rental power plant at Ashuganj in Brahmanbaria yesterday.
The Ashuganj project was supposed to come into operation on October 27, 2008 under a three-year contract with Power Development Board (PDB). It has already exhausted almost half the contract period.
After bagging the deal in mid-2008 posing as a rental power company with power plant equipment and investment ready for this project, PEL couldn't proceed with the scheme for many months. At one point, the company told the PDB it had been unable to arrange loan for the project.
After repeated warnings of PDB to cancel this deal, the government gave the company an ultimate deadline of March 31, 2009 for finishing the project.
The PEL failed to do so and didn't give the PDB adequate liquidated damage for the failure.
The power plant finally started a test run on April 5. According to PEL officials, since then, they have been supplying 57MW electricity to the national grid.
PEL claims it has 15 power-generating units each capable of producing 4MW regularly. Of the production, they will commercially supply 55MW to the national grid and the rest 5MW will be used for their own purpose.
On June 1, 2009, the establishment work of the Precision Energy's plant was started on one-acre land leased from Ashuganj Power Station Company Limited.
MWM, a German company, undertook the engineering and implementation works for power generation while local Energypac Engineering Limited implemented Substation Equipment Works.
Engineer Ruhul Amin, plant manager of PEL, said the high-tech power plant is sufficient to meet the demand of adjacent two districts.
He added they need at least three acres of land for the plant.