A 230-kilovolt transmission line carrying 132-kv electricity to the national grid started functioning from last Saturday. Sources at the State-owned Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB) said power generated from the 1320-Megawatt coal-fired Payra power plant would be transmitted through the 230-KV transmission line has already been commissioned.
It is expected that the first 660-MW unit will start electricity generation by December of the current year and the second unit with same capacity will go into operation by June 2020. Director of the project Shah Abdul Maula told Bangladesh Post that all construction works for the first unit has been completed. Construction works of the second unit progressing fast. Around 81 percent work has so far been completed, he added.
‘We were waiting for the 132-KV line for commissioning of the first unit. However, we have got it. Hope we can start the work this week,” he added. “Our overall preparation is quite well. If PGCB provides us the power transmission line by coming August, we’re hopeful that we can start supplying electricity to the national grid by the end of this year,’ Abdul Maula continued.
Bangladesh-China Power Company Ltd (BCPCL), a joint venture of Bangladesh's North-West Power Generation Company Ltd (NWPGCL) and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) are implementing the project at a cost of $2 billion. The power plant is being built with financial support from China's Exim Bank.
According to NWPGCL, all major equipment for the second unit have reached to the project site and the works on construction of the superstructure is going on. The construction works for the coal jetty, coal unloader, coal conveyor gallery, steel structure and civil construction have already been done. Construction works of power block area, balance of plant (BOP) and water intake have also been completed.
The power plant would require around 12,000 tonnes of coal daily to generate electricity. BCPCL would import around 4 million tonnes of coal from Indonesia annually to run the power plant. Bangladesh-China Power Company signed a deal with an Indonesian firm at a hotel in Dhaka on June 17 last to import the coal from the Southeast Asian country for the power plant. The coal will be imported at the end of August or early September, an official said.
The plant will use sub-bituminous coal with calorific value at 4700-5500 Kcal. This type of coal is chiefly abundant in Indonesia and Australia.The government has also allocated 998.77 acres of land to the NWPGCL for implementing the project on a turnkey basis by using eco-friendly ultra-super critical technology. According to the Power System Master Plan, the government plans to generate around 50 percent of the country's overall electricity from coal. To implement the plan, the government will have to generate around 12,000 megawatts of electricity from coal by 2024, 20,000-MW by 2030 and 30,000-MW by 2041, sources said.
The country now has only three coal-fired power plants with a total generation capacity of only 524 MW.The government has undertaken a number of coal and LNG based power plants across the country to generate 24,000MW electricity by 2021, 40,000 MW by 2030 and 60,000 MW by 2041.The 1,200 MW coal-fired power plant at Matarbari is expected to go into operation by 2023. On the other hand, work is going on to set up a 1320 MW power plant at Rampal in Bagerhat. Meanwhile, work to build a nuclear power plant at Rooppur in Pabna is underway.