2023-06-03 12:22:02
Payra, the country’s largest coal-based power plant, is shutting down production due to the coal crisis. However, despite the news of the closure of the plant on June 3, Payra thermal power station authorities said that one unit of the plant can be continued till the night of June 5 with the current amount of coal.
As a result, the load shedding that was expected in the southern region from June 3 is happening two more days later.
Shah Abdul Mawla, Plant Manager of Payra 1,320 MW Thermal Power Plant, told Jago News that it may be possible to keep the plant running till the night of June 5 with the amount of coal available so far.
A unit of the power plant was shut down on May 25 due to lack of coal. At present, the remaining unit of 660 MW capacity is generating electricity.
According to Payra thermal power plant authorities, the power plant’s current debt to the Bangladesh Power Development Board is around five thousand crore taka. The Electricity Development Board was paying some of the money, with which the plant was running. However, because of the dollar shortage due to the global crisis, LC cannot be done as money cannot be converted into dollars, and because of this, coal import is not possible.
However, to overcome the crisis, an initiative has been taken to collect coal quickly. Coal may take at least 25 days to arrive. Due to this, the power plant may have to be shut down till the last week of June.
On May 15, 2020, Payra started production of the first unit of the 1,320 MW thermal power plant with a capacity of 660 MW, and in December of that year, the second unit of the plant became operational. However, even though the power plant has achieved a capacity of 1,320 megawatts of electricity, one unit was sitting idle for a long time as the transmission line construction work was not completed.
On October 14, 2016, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese President Xi Jinping laid the foundation stone of Payra 1,320 MW thermal power plant at Kalapara in Patuakhali. However, this is the first time since the power plant went into production that the plant has to be completely shut down due to coal shortage.
Abdus Salam Arif/MRR/ASM
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