Staff Reporter :
Electricity generation at all three units of the Barapukuria Thermal Power Plant in Dinajpur has been fully suspended following mechanical failures, raising concerns of load shedding and low voltage in northern Bangladesh.
The plant’s outage has cut around 200 MW from the national grid, confirmed Abu Bakar Siddique, chief engineer of the facility.
Unit-3 stopped producing power on October 16 due to a mechanical fault. Despite continuous repair efforts on Friday and Saturday, the unit could not be restarted, resulting in a loss of about 160–170 MW.
Unit-1 was taken offline Sunday night after a boiler tube leakage, shutting down its 50 MW contribution. Repairs are expected to take up to a week, and the plant is coordinating with the Chinese manufacturer for technical support to resume operations. Unit-2 has remained inactive since 2020.
With all units offline, the plant’s total 525 MW capacity is now completely offline—125 MW each from Units 1 and 2, and 275 MW from Unit-3.
Md Ashraful Islam Mondol, chief engineer (operations) of Northern Electricity Supply Company (Nesco) in the Rangpur region, said the northern grid will now face a power shortfall. “Meeting demand will be difficult. Power will have to be drawn from distant regions, which could lead to low voltage and poor-quality electricity in the north,” he explained.
