JERA, the world’s largest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), and Summit Power, Bangladesh’s largest independent power producer, are collaborating on a plan to decarbonise the South Asian nation’s power sector.
Bangladesh is accelerating its efforts to diversify power generation sources by expanding use of LNG and developing renewable energy to meet rising demand, as well as decarbonise the electricity sector. Domestic natural gas production is falling and the government has announced a policy to scrap coal-fired power development.
Under a memorandum of understanding, signed at the Asian Green Growth Partnership Ministerial Meeting, JERA and Summit said that they will explore projects that create opportunities to utilise hydrogen and ammonia in ways that contribute to achieving Bangladesh’s Paris Agreement goals, and that support the introduction of renewable energy.
JERA, a 50-50 joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Company and Chubu Electric Power, acquired 22% of Summit Power’s outstanding shares in October 2019.
Summit Power is a power generation company under the umbrella of Bangladesh’s leading conglomerate Summit Group, and is the country’s largest independent power producer, operating approximately 2.3 GW of power generation capacity. Or roughly 10% of Bangladesh’s power generation capacity. It also operates a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) with a daily regasification capacity of 500 million cubic feet located offshore Moheshkhali, Bangladesh.
With a large proportion of Bangladesh’s electricity generated by fossil fuels and a limited number of renewable energy sources available, JERA believes it will be able to fully leverage the experience it has gained in developing a decarbonisation roadmap for Japan. “Taking the country’s unique circumstances fully into account, JERA will contribute to achieving low-cost and speedy decarbonisation for Bangladesh while helping maintain the stable supply of energy,” JERA said in a statement yesterday.
