Three power plants of Summit Power Ltd (SPL), the country’s largest private power producer, will cease operations from April 1 as the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) is not renewing their power purchase agreements (PPAs).
The plants—Rupganj, Maona, and Ullapara—have a combined capacity of 77MW and have been supplying electricity to BREB since 2009 under 15-year agreements. The contracts expired between March and June last year.
In its annual report for 2023-24, Summit said that it had requested BREB to extend the PPAs for all three plants. Following negotiations and a consent letter from BREB, the company resumed power supply last year, pending tariff negotiations and PPA renewal approval.
However, in a letter dated March 11, BREB confirmed that the contracts would not be renewed, and the three power plants would shut down from April 1, 2025, Summit said in a disclosure on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) today.
Shares of Summit Power fell 5.10 percent to close at Tk 14.90 on the DSE.
The private power producer reported a 37.4 percent drop in earnings per share, which fell to Tk 1.07 during July-December 2024 from Tk 1.71 a year earlier. However, its net operating cash flow increased.
The company’s total comprehensive income declined to Tk 201 crore in the first half of the 2024-25 financial year from Tk 309.25 crore in the same period the previous year, according to its unaudited financial statement.
Summit Power owns and operates 15 power plants across the country, with a total installed capacity of 976 MW.
Summit attributed the profit decline to the non-renewal of PPAs.
Additionally, three other power plants, despite contract renewals, have been operating on a “no electricity, no payment” basis without capacity payments, it said.
“Income tax expenses were higher in the current period as more plants came under the tax bracket after the expiry of initial PPAs,” SPL stated.
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