Noman Mosharef :
The government has been saying that there will be no crisis of electricity in the country as they will sell it through street vendor. But what now the people in the country are witnessing-most of the major power generation plants have shutdown due to fund constraint.
According to experts, not only people’s life-total industrial units and its production virtually halted due to severe loadshedding.
The businessmen as well as the nation have been facing serious economic crises.
Apart from it, the government has to pay huge amount of foreign currency as capacity charge without receiving any electricity from the power plants remained shut for fuel crisis, experts said.
Against this backdrop, the 1,320-MW coal-fired Payra Power Plant in Patuakhali has witnessed its last working day on Monday (June 5) before shutting down temporarily due to shortage of coal.
The other unit of the plant has been closed from May 25. Since then the country has been facing loadshedding which reached apex level after the shutting of the whole plant.
In this circumstance, the authority is planning to resume production at shut oil-based power plant located nearby areas of Payra (Barishal, Khulna region) to mitigate the power outage.
The frequent fuel price hike in the world market forced to shut the country’s oil-based power plants from July 2022. During that time power sector was bound to opt for loadshedding about 2,000-MW.
There is no hope for an immediate recovery from power crisis as the dollar shortage forced to stop coal import from abroad.
Finding no other means, power development board (PDB) is shifting power generation to oil-based power plant.
There are 20 power plants in Khulna and Barishal area including Rampal and Payra power station. Of them there are six furnace oil-based power plants in Khulna region. They are Khulna 115 PP MW, Fandhpur 50 MW Picking PP, Gopalganj 100 MW, Noahpara 40 MW, Rupsha 105 MW and Madhumoti 100 MW power plant while diesel based three power plants are Khulna 225 MW CCPP, Noahpara 100 MW and Khulna 330 MW CCPP.
Moreover, in Khulna, there are two gas based power station. They are Khulna 225 MW (until no production) and Bheramara 410 MW power station. Besides, Orion owned 100 MW solar plant is located in Mongla.
On the other hand, in Barishal region, there are two furnace oil-based power plants. They are Barishal 110 MW PP owned by summit group and another is United group owned 150 MW United Payra power limited.
Gas based three power station are located in Bharishal. They are Bhola 33 MW PP, Bhola 225 MW CCPP and 220 MW Bhola New Power Limited. There is only one coal based power station in Bharishal named Bansal 307 MW.
The power generate capacity of all stations are (Except Khulna 225 MW and 330 MW) 2, 380 MW.
The Rampal Power Station and Payra Power Plant have a total capacity of 2, 564 MW. Before the establishment of Payra and Rampal power station, oil based power plants were only power station to provide electricity in Barishal and Khulna region.
Due to oil shortage, the production at Khulna 225 MW, Rupsha 105 MW, Madhumoti 100 MW and Summit’s 110 MW remained shut for long time.
However, PGCB’s latest report forecasting that Khulna 225 MW power plant is going to produce 120 MW while Rupsha 105 MW to 17 MW and Summit 110 MW to 16 MW.
Power Development Board (PDB) has sent a demand letter to Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) for oil to produce electricity. BPC source said PDB asked them for 55 thousand metric tones oil in June which already provided.
On the issue, PDB’s member (Production) SM Wazed Ali said we have reopened few oil-based power stations to meet the loss of Payra.
We are trying to continue the power production and face the terrible loadshedding to lessen the people sufferings, he added.
