Payra Power Plant is resuming its operation from today (Sunday) after around 20 days as the plant received coal from Indonesia on June 22.
Engr. A.M. Khurshedul Alam, managing director of Bangladesh-China Power Company (Pvt.) Limited (BCPCL) on Saturday said, “We hope we can resume operation of the plant early Sunday,”
The BCPCL, a joint venture of Bangladesh’s state-owned North-West Power Generation Company Limited and Chinese state-owned China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation (CMC), is the owner and operator of the 1320 MW Payra coal-fired power plant.
A ship carrying 41,327 metric tonnes of coal arrived at Payra Port yesterday – 18 days after the thermal power plant stopped electricity generation due to coal shortage.
Four more coal-carrying ships will arrive at Payra in the first week of July, according to plant officials.
The country’s largest thermal power plant, Payra, completely shut down on June 5 due to coal shortage.
Due to failure in paying the outstanding bills of $390 million, caused by dollar shortage, production of a unit of the power plant was halted on May 25 as the companies involved stopped supplying coal.
Another unit’s production continued until June 5, but that also shut down due to coal shortage – leading to weeks of nationwide load-shedding amidst the hottest summer on record.
BCPCL Managing Director Engineer AM Khurshedul Alam said authorities of Payra power plant have made all preparations to launch a unit of the plant on June 25 and later another unit will also go for operation.
The ultra-super critical thermal power plant suspended its electricity generation due to coal shortage at 12:00 pm on June 5, Khurshedul said.
Talking to journalists, Payra port deputy director (traffic) Azizur Rahman said another ship with coal is scheduled to arrive in the port on July 1. More 10 ships are scheduled to arrive in Payra Thermal Power Plant in phases.
Shah Abdul Hasib, superintendent engineer of Payra thermal power plant, said the ship arrived at Payra port 10 days after it left Indonesia with coal.
The power plant is a 1,320 megawatt coal-fired power station built in Kalapara upazila of Patuakhali district.
