Commercial production has started at Ashuganj Power Station Company Limited's new power plant which will add 400 megawatts of electricity to the national grid of the country.

The Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources disclosed this information through a Facebook post on Saturday (26 November 26).

Managing Director at Ashuganj Power Station Company Limited (APSCL) Engineer AMM Sajjadur Rahman told The Business Standard that the power plant commenced its commercial generation from 26 November and will continue power generation from now on.

Chief Engineer of Ashuganj Power Plant and Project Director of the 400MW Combined Cycle Power Plant Abdul Majid said that the commissioning of the new plant has been delayed due to lack of gas. Experimental power generation started from 15 November. Commercial electricity production started from Saturday night.

Though the power plant has the capacity to produce 400MW, production will depend on demand and gas supply, added Abdul Majid.

Ashuganj Power Station is adding 1,000MW of electricity to the national grid every day from the previous four and the new unit. 

The current Awami League government declared Ashuganj a "power hub" in 2009 as part of the current government's power generation plan. In continuation of this, Ashuganj Power Station (APSCL) authorities started the work of increasing the power generation target of this center to 6000MW by 2030.

In 2018 Ashuganj Power Plant started the construction of the new 400MW combined cycle power plant. However, due to various complications including the pandemic, the contractor could not complete the work on time.=

Later, the construction work was completed at the end of September, but the production could not be started due to lack of gas. Its construction cost $180.325 million.