For a thermal Power Plant infrastructure facilities like river, transportation for heavy equipment (highway, railway and waterway), fuel sourcing (Gas networks) are mandatory. Considering the above mentioned facilities of “Ashuganj” an agreement was signed in 1966 with a foreign construction company to establish a Thermal Power Plant in Ashuganj. “Ashuganj” which is situated near to the Titas Gas field and at the bank of river Meghna was selected as the suitable space for establishing the largest power plant of the country at that time. Acquiring of 311 acre land of the north-east side of the Meghna Railway Bridge the construction work of Ashuganj Thermal Power Plant was started in 1966. With the financial assistance of the German Govt. two units of 128MW capacity was established. In 1968 the erection of main equipment was started and by July 1970 the two units were commissioned. At that time to establish another three units in future some facility was preserved. After the post liberation period Ashuganj Power Plant has played an important role in the reconstruction and economic development of the war stricken country, Bangladesh.

While plan was taken to increase the capacity of Ashuganj Power Plant to meet the increasing demand of electricity then M/S Lahmyer International from Germany investigated the possibility of expanding the power plant and recommended to establish three units (unit 3,4 & 5) having a capacity of 150 MW each.

For establishing these three units M/S Lahmyer International was appointed as the adviser. IDA, KFW (German Govt.), Kuwait and OPEC fund and ADB gave the financial support for establishing these three units. It should be mentioned that as financial support was given by different organization so supplies of different equipment was taken from different country. The turbo-generator part was supplied and established by M/S BBC from Germany (at present ABB) and boiler part was made by IHI from Japan and supplied and established by M/S Mitsui and Co. from Japan. Others main equipment was supplied and installed by M/S BBC (Germany), M/S IHI (Japan), M/S KDC (Korea) and M/S PCC (Korea). The 230KV Ashuganj-Ghorashal transmission line was established by M/S Lucky International (Korea).

These three units were commissioned on December, 1986 and May, 1987 successively. While the plan of establishing unit 3 and 4 was going on at the same time another decision was taken to establish a combined cycle plant in Ashuganj by British financial support. The total capacity of this combined cycle plant is 146MW, where two gas turbine units having 56MW capacity each and one steam turbine unit having a capacity of 34MW. The main equipment of this unit is made and established by GEC from England (at present ALSTOM, UK). As of the combined cycle plant GT-1, ST, and GT-2 unit were commissioned in 1982, 1984 and 1986 consecutively.

Main fuel used for this power plant is natural gas (mainly coming from Bakhrabad Gas Distribution Company Ltd.). For steam generation and cooling the required water is taken from Meghna River. Huge amount of water used for cooling is discharged to river through discharge canal of power plant. It should be mentioned that in dry season the water coming from discharge canal is used for irrigation of a huge area of Ashuganj with the help of a sluice gate. With this water 36,000 acre land is irrigated.

As a part of the Power Sector Development and Reform Program of the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) Ashuganj Power Station Company Ltd. (APSCL) has been incorporated under the Companies Act 1994 on 28 June 2000. The Registration No. of APSCL is 40630 (2328) / 2000. Ashuganj Power Station (APS) Complex (along with its Assets and Liabilities) had been transferred to the APSCL through a Provisional Vendor's Agreement signed between BPDB and APSCL on 22 May 2003. All the activities of the company started formally on 01 June 2003. From that day the overall activities of the Company along with operation, maintenance and development of the Power Station are vested upon a Management Team consisting of the Managing Director, the Executive Director (Engineering), Executive Director (P & P) & the Executive Director (Finance).

According to the Articles of Association of the Company, 99.99% of total shares is held by BPDB and the rest of the shares distributed among Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Planning, Power Division, MOPEMR & Energy Division, and MOPEMR of GOB.

To solve the huge deficient of electricity of the country, the Govt. planned to establish new plant on quick basis. According to the direction of the Govt. APSCL had taken a project of establishing a 50MW plant with self-finance in 2010. Accordingly for the completion of this project an agreement was signed with TSK, Spain (EPC) on 25th July 2010. This unit is commercially generating 53MW of electricity since 30th April 2011.

APSCL has undertaken 4 more projects (225MW CCPP, 450MW CCPP South, 450MW CCPP North, and 200MW Modular) since 2013. Among these 225MW CCPP project having 223MW of generation capacity were commissioned on 09 December 2015. 200MW Modular Plant having 195MW of generation capacity were commissioned on 08 May 2015. Ashuganj CCPP (South) project having 360MW of generation capacity is completed and commissioned on 18 June 2016. Ashuganj 450MW CCPP (North) project were commissioned on 11 June 2017. As a result, total generation capacity (Net Output) of APSCL has increased to 1627MW.