Wärtsilä received equipment orders for two new power plants to be supplied to customers in Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh has established an urgent plan for dealing with the current power shortage, and these two new power plants will add significant generating capacity to the national grid. The value of the two contracts is approximately EUR 68 million.

Summit Naryanganj Power Co. Ltd, an independent power producer (IPP), has ordered Wärtsilä 46GD gas-diesel engines and auxiliary equipment for its Naryanganj power plant project. Although the site does not currently have access to gas supplies, the dual-fuel engines can be switched from heavy fuel oil (HFO) operation to gas at a later stage when gas eventually becomes available.

The Wärtsilä gas-diesel technology offers a unique degree of fuel flexibility, permitting the engines to run on a variety of fuels including crude oil, heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil, natural gas, associated gas, or any combination of liquid fuel and gas. In addition, the technology is insensitive to variations in the fuel composition. This feature enables even further flexibility in the utilization of different kinds of fuel for power generation.

Another IPP, Khulna Power Unit II Ltd., has ordered Wärtsilä 46 engines and auxiliary equipment for its Khulna Extension project. In view of the urgency of the situation in Bangladesh, both orders are being handled on a fast-track basis, and the power plants are scheduled to be in operation as early as March 2011.

Wärtsilä currently has around 600 MW of generating capacity installed in Bangladesh.