Rampal power plant resumes production after 23 days

The Rampal thermal power plant Bagerhat has resumed production after it remained halted for 23 days due to a shortage of coal.

Unit 1 of the 1,329MW coal-fired power plant restarted production at 9:10pm on Tuesday. Power generation at the plant had been suspended since April 24.

Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company (BIFPCL) Deputy General Manager Anwarul Azim said: "Production has started again after the arrival of coal from Indonesia... Power from Unit 1 has been connected to the national grid."

Currently 260MW of electricity was being produced and being fed to the grid, the official said, adding that production would be increased according to the demand of the National Load Dispatch Centre.

Unit 1 of the plant, launched as a joint venture between Bangladesh and India, went into production late last year. However, the shortage of imported coal has repeatedly hampered the desired power generation. The plant requires 5,000 tons of coal per day to generate 660MW of electricity. Even as coal reserves are exhausted, the process of buying more coal has lost momentum due to the ongoing dollar crisis.

Unit 2 is scheduled to be commissioned in June. The plant will then require 10,000 tons of coal every day to run the two units, which is why a total of 600,000 tons of coal is being purchased from Indonesia for now.