JERA to acquire 49% of Reliance’s power project in Bangladesh

Japan’s JERA has agreed to acquire stakes in a power project in Bangladesh now under development by Reliance Power.

Under the agreement, signed with the India’s Reliance Power, it will acquire 49 percent of the gas-fired thermal power generation project with combined capacity of 750MW, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The gas-based combined cycle power project will be set up in Narayanganj’s Meghnaghat, 40km southeast of Dhaka. The project will be set up within 36 months of signing the agreements, according to the statement.

The Bangladesh Power Development Board will buy electricity from the project for 22 years.

The project company, with support from the two Asia’s energy giants, will negotiate the engineering, procurement and construction contract and loan agreements for the project in order to make final the investment decision for the project.

Anil D Ambani, chairman of Reliance Group of Companies, said, “This joint venture project will give a tremendous boost to the economic and industrial growth of Bangladesh and will enhance the energy security of the country with clean, green and reliable LNG based power.

Satoshi Onoda, JERA president, said, “Together with Reliance Power, a leading private power company in India, JERA will realise a stable power supply and contribute to sustainable economic growth in Bangladesh.”

Reliance plans to invest about $1 billion to set up the plant by 2022, Reuters reported.

The combined-cycle power plant will be fuelled by gas and liquefied natural gas.

Bangladesh agreed a deal with China last week to build renewable energy projects providing 500 megawatts by 2023 at an investment cost of $400 million, in the latest sign of Beijing’s growing role in the South Asian nation’s energy sector.

Bangladesh’s installed power capacity is more than 20,000 MW and the country aims to provide electricity to all of its more than 160 million people by 2020.

The country’s energy sector has grown 12.5 percent in recent years, with renewable making up only 3 percent of the total, government officials said. Bangladesh plans to boost this to 10 percent by 2022.