Indo-Bangla joint venture Rampal plant to resume power production from Wednesday

Dhaka, Feb 15

Rampal power plant, a joint venture of Indian state-owned NTPC and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), will resume its operations from Wednesday.

Unit-1 of the plant, having 660 MW capacity, was forced to shut down on January 14 due to shortage of coal. The authorities of the power plant were unable to open any letter of credit (LC) to import coal due to the dollar crisis.

After a lot of persuasion at the policy level, LC-opening was allowed for importing coal and the supplier sent a consignment of 30,000 metric tonnes, said Anwarul Azim, deputy general manager of the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited (BIFPCL).

"The imported coal reached the jetty of the power plant on February 9 and now we are set to resume operation at the unit-1 of the plant from Wednesday," he said.

Azim said the first unit started supplying electricity to the national grid on a trial basis on December 18, 2022 night.

Azim further said 79.35 per cent of the work of the second unit has already been completed. If everything goes according to plan, work of the second unit with a production capacity of 660 MW will be completed soon. He hoped the second unit would start commercial production in June.

BIFPCL officials said that State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid is expected to visit the plant on Thursday.

The unit is ready to go into commercial production, Bangladesh Power Development Board (PDB) spokesperson Shameem Hasan told media.

The first unit of the 1,320MW power plant in Bagerhat is supplying 620-630 megawatt of electricity to the national grid per day through the Mongla-Mawa-Aminbazar gridline of Dhaka.

"The authorities are yet to fix the date for starting commercial operation. A committee comprising officials of the power ministry, the PDB and Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) will inspect the power plant and fix the date soon," he mentioned.

The official said that another consignment of 50,000 MT of coal is also coming to the country soon. He also informed that the plant's unit-2 is expected to be operational from June this year.