450 MW Meghnaghat plant shut after fire

The country is going to bear the brunt of frequent load-shedding throughout the entire summer, and average electricity generation cost is going to shoot up, as the 450 megawatts (MW) gas-fired 'lowest cost' Meghnaghat power plant went out of operation, said sources.
The country's largest private sector power plant - Meghnaghat - remained shut since Monday evening, as its 150 MW steam turbine 'collapsed' following a fire accident, they said.
There is no scope of reinitiating electricity generation immediately from the 450 MW power plant until replacement or repairing of the steam turbine, an engineer of the state-owned Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) said.
The plant generated around 7.0 per cent of the country's average generation of around 6,400 MW.
It might take several months to replace the damaged turbine. The power plant owner - Malaysia's Pendekar Energy - would claim insurance first, and after settlement of the claim it might start building the steam turbine, he also said.
If the sponsor resorts to initiate electricity generation from simple cycle plant without the steam turbine, it might also take a couple of months, the official added.
The power plant caught fire at around 7 pm Monday, which
forced all of its three units to shut. A three-storied steel structure of the plant collapsed following the incident. Entire equipment, including generator of the steam turbine, was severely burnt by the fire, said sources.
Fire-fighters from Narayanganj, Demra and Daudkandi of Comilla doused the flame after two and a half hours of frantic effort.
When asked, a senior official of Pendeker Energy refused to comment on the accident and the possible date of restarting electricity generation from the plant.
As the damaged power plant is an independent power producer (IPP) plant, the government has 'almost' nothing to deal with the issue other than requesting its owning company to restart the plant immediately after necessary replacement work.
The closure of the 450 MW power plant is a big blow to the government's efforts to increase the country's electricity generation. It would increase dependency on high-cost oil-fired rental and quick rental power plants, whose average electricity generation cost is over Tk 15 per unit, said an official.
Prime Minister's Adviser on Energy Issues Dr. Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, Power Secretary Monowar Islam and other top officials of the Power Division under the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources and BPDB visited the power plant Tuesday morning.
Meghnaghat power plant was set up by the American AES Corporation in 2003 under a 22-year build, own and operate (BOO) arrangement. AES later sold the plant to British Globeleq Ltd, which again sold it to Pendekar Group.
The plant sponsor has a 22-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with BPDB, as the buyer of electricity produced by its power plant, and a gas supply agreement with the state-owned Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd (TGTDCL) to source natural gas.
Under the deal, BPDB has been purchasing electricity from Meghnaghat plant at 1.76 US cents per unit (1 kilowatt-hour), equivalent to around Tk 1.80 per unit. The tariff is the lowest in the world, said a senior BPDB official.