Five rental power contracts awarded to inexperienced power companies by the Power Cell of the power ministry in January fail to add power to the national grid 46 days behind schedule.
Of these five, four went to Energy Prima, a shell company of Hosaf Group. Energy Prima is now struggling to successfully complete a 100-hour test run of a 50-megawatt rental power plant in Kumargaon for the last few days.
The Kumargaon plant's latest test run started on Monday. Since yesterday evening it was able to generate 50MW. "This should be carried out 100 hours before it can go for commercial operation," said a source.
The power ministry pushed these expensive rental power deals for three years on the argument that these can be installed within 120 days. The Power Development Board (PDB) will incur a loss of Tk 40 crore a month if all of these eight rental power schemes come into operation. But the ministry believes that the cost of not having power was much higher a loss for the nation.
Now it is clear that the three other rental power plants of Energy Prima are still far away from launching commercial operation. The three plants are Shahjibazar 50MW plant, Bogra 20MW and Fenchuganj 50MW.
Earlier in May, Energy Prima chief Moazzem Hossain informed the energy ministry that the Kumargaon plant would come into operation from mid-June, Shahjibazar plant from June 25, Bogra mid-July and Fenchuganj from August. This schedule now falls flat.
Another rental power plant in Bhola to be installed by local GBB with Indonesian Kaltimax is also uncertain. GBB was previously awarded with a 15-year rental power project in Bogra but failed to launch it.
But the Power Cell awarded it with a 33MW power project in Bhola. GBB has only recently taken move to open the letter of credit to import power plant machinery.
An eighth contract for a rental power plant in Ashuganj signed with yet another inexperienced local company Green Power in April has to launch operation in mid-August.
As per the contract, PDB would penalise each of the defaulting power companies with $500 fine against each megawatt power the contractors failed to produce. Each contract is given 120 days to complete.
"This means Energy Prima should be paying $85,000 a day and GBB-Kaltimax $16,500 from May 15 for failing to meet the deadline," notes a PDB official.
If the contractor fails to launch the plant 60 days behind the schedule, the PDB will serve it with a notice to terminate the contract and a legal process will follow.
"In this case, Energy Prima faces a situation of contractual termination from mid-July for failing to launch operation," says a source.
The government signed seven rental power contracts with four companies in January and one in April. Of these seven, only one 40MW plant installed by British company Aggreko came into operation from the first week of June in Khulna. This plant was supposed to come into operation from May 28.
But Energy Prima and GBB-Kaltimax grossly failed to meet their May 15 deadline for five plants. A sixth deal signed with US power company Alsthom fell flat as the power company did not take any initiative to implement it.
Energy Prima chief Moazzem Hossain is one of the accused in the Barapukuria scam case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission.
Sources say brother of former BNP lawmaker Mosharraf Hossain of Feni, Moazzem is being backed by a strong lobby.