Rooppur Plant: NPCBL to finalise power purchase deal

The Nuclear Power Plant Company of Bangladesh Limited (NPCBL) has been given the responsibility for finalising the power purchase agreement with the Power Development Board (PDB) for selling electricity from the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant.

The Ministry of Science and Technology on March 25 informed the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) about the government's decision on the PPA, sources at Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant and NPCBL told The Daily Star after a meeting yesterday.

The NPCBL organised the meeting at the Rooppur site office to discuss the PPA after getting the government's approval, the sources said.

"We have submitted the draft proposal and design of agreement to the Ministry of Science and Technology recently, but we did not finalise the price of electricity from the Rooppur project as the production cost has not been finalised," said Md Zahedul Hassan, project director of RNPP and also the managing director of NPCBL.

"Without completing the deal on the maintenance cost of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant with Russia, we are yet to confirm the total cost of the project. Hence, NPCBL is yet to fix the price of electricity from Rooppur project at the moment," he said.

RNPP is being implemented at a cost of $12.65 billion for the installation of two reactors, each to produce 1200MW. The Russian state nuclear organisation ROSATOM has been implementing the project by using its technology, while Russia is giving loans to bear 90 percent of the project's cost.

While the production of electricity from RNPP has already been delayed by two years, the incomplete grid line is expected to further delay supply from unit-1.

More than 94 percent of the unit's construction work has been completed, and production is likely to begin by the end of this year, according to project officials.

Citing the Nuclear Act, 2015, Zahedul said the charge of the plant -- entire responsibility and assets -- will be handed over to NPCBL after the completion of the construction.