Payra coal power plant shut

No respite from outages amid searing summer heat seems around as Bangladesh’s biggest coal-fired electricity producer, the 1244-megawatt Payra power plant, now goes phut for want of fuel.
Sources said the two-unit Payra power plant went out of operation at 12:15pm Monday following coal crisis caused by US dollar crunch, thus accentuating woes stemming from the lingering load-shedding.
The power plant at the country’ southern coast was limping at half its capacity generating around 622 megawatts (MWs) of electricity before the shutting down of the entire plant, according to official data available with the state-run Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).
Bangladesh-China Power Company Ltd, the owner of the Payra power plant, couldn’t afford to import sufficient quantities of coal to fuel its operation due to a dearth of US dollar, said BCPCL Managing Director AM Khurshedul Alam.
“A coal-purchase bill of around US$294 million remained unpaid,” he said, while reports have it that the country struggles to make ends meet amid falling foreign-exchange reserves.
The MD, however, holds the hope that the entire power plant will come online again as the government gave around US$100 million to import coal several days back.
The entire power plant will have to stay shut at least for 20 days from June 5 to June 25, he said, as coal-consignment arrival takes time.
According to official data from the BPDB, country’s overall electricity generation was around 12,099 MWs at day peak hour at around 12 noon Monday against the demand for 14,900 MWs, forcing a load-shedding of around 2,675 MWs.
Electricity generation from gas-fired power plants amounted to 6,205 MWs, furnace oil-fired plants 2,442 MWs, coal plants 1,935 MWs, solar-power plants 436 MWs, and hydropower plants 25 MWs.
Bangladesh imported around 1,074 MWs of electricity, under arrangements made earlier in the wake of power shortage despite contingency measures like indemnity to authorities to go to any extent in augmenting domestic power production that invented much-talked-about expensive rental-and quick-rental plants.
The Payra power plant initiated commercial operation of its second 660-MW unit early December 2020. And the first 660MW unit of the power plant commenced commercial operation in May 2020.
The BCPCL is a 50:50 joint-venture project between the state-owned North-West Power Generation Company Ltd (NWPGCL) and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC).
It happens to be the country’s first power plant to run on imported coal.
The consortium of China Energy Engineering Group, the Northeast Electric Power Construction Co Ltd, and the China National Energy Engineering & Construction Co Ltd was the engineering, procurement and construction, or EPC, contractor of the project.
The project was implemented on a 30:70 equity-debt ratio, meaning the NWPGCL and the CMC provided 30-percent funds of the total project cost, and mobilised the remaining 70 per cent from external sources.
It requires around 12,000 tonnes of coal daily to generate electricity on a full scale.
The BCPCL provided 20-percent equity to implement the power project, and the remaining 80 per cent is being sourced as loan from Exim Bank of China.
The government has issued a state guarantee worth US$ 1.0 billion in favour of the Chinese loan for implementing the power project—one of a number of megaprojects China has executed and are still executing in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh has been facing an acute dollar crisis since the commencement of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022. The country’s foreign-currency reserves dropped to down $30 billion last week from a record $48.6 billion in August 2021.

Azizjst@yahoo.com