Ghorashal Power Plant’s Unit-5 resumes production

Staff Reporter :
Power generation at Unit-5 of Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant in Narsingdi resumed operation on Thursday just after two weeks of going out of order.
Earlier, on October 4, units 4&5 of the Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant were shut down on account of a power failure in the national grid at 2:05pm.
However, Unit-5 of Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant started operation on Wednesday and has been now generating 170 MW electricity, against its installed capacity of 210 MW, Acting Chief Engineer Abu Bakar Siddik of Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant confirmed the news to media on Thursday.
Except unit-5, almost all other units of the power station resumed operation on October 4.
On October 4, due to the failure in the national grid, all the areas of Dhaka, Chattogram, Cumilla, Mymensingh and Sylhet divisions were simultaneously without electricity. As a result, Dhaka city and adjoining areas were getting relatively less power supply from Ghorashal. The power station plays a major role in supplying electricity to Dhaka.
Due to a major technical fault, officials failed to resume power generation from unit-5 of Ghorashal. After repair, BPDB engineers managed to resume the unit’s operation at the plant on Wednesday.
Power generation resumption from unit-5 would help improving the electricity supply situation in Dhaka and surrounding areas, said Abu Bakar Siddik.
Dhaka city and adjoining areas are still experiencing frequent power cut due to a huge gap between power supply and demand.
BPDB data shows the country’s power generation varies between 11,000 MW and 12,000 MW, following the national grid failure on October 4 against a demand for about 14,000 MW. Out of three units, Unit-7 has been remaining closed for maintenance since 19 September.
The power plant resumed operation a week after. However, it was again shut down two days after.
Though the power supply was restored at 9:00pm on October 4 after 6-7 hours, it took a few more hours for the power plants to return to full load one by one.
About 65 percent of the people of the country had to remain without electricity for about eight hours due to lack of electricity in the eastern grid. Some areas were in darkness for longer than that.