With the unit-1 of the 2x660MW Maitree Super Thermal Power Project, Rampa power plant will go into commercial run in October, reports BSS.
It will raise further the country's electricity generation capacity as all necessary steps, including successful synchronization with the national grid, have already been completed.
In a major step in further strengthening India-Bangladesh Power Sector Cooperation, Unit-I of the 2x660 MW Maitree Super Thermal Power Project was successfully synchronized with the national grid on August 15, 2022 providing 91.7 MW of electricity to the national grid.
Being built at an estimated cost of Taka 16,000 crore, the plant aims to produce a total of 1,320 MW of electricity in its two units (660 megawatts in each).
The completion of construction of Unit-I of the Power Plant is expected to be jointly announced by the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh and India during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India in the first week of September 2022.
During a field-visit to the plant, it was seen that the construction work of this mega structure was going on in full swing aiming to make operationalize commercially the first unit of the plant by October this year while the 2nd unit by March next year.
Talking to reporters at the project site, project director Subhash Chandra Pandey said that their plan is to run commercially the first unit of the plant by October this year.
"The reliability test is already done," he said, adding that the commercial run of the unit-1 could have been possible much earlier had there been no impact of the COVID-19 as the pandemic had eaten up more than one year.
Responding to the issue of coal, he said that around 50,000 metric tons of coal has already arrived at the plant site while two more ships loaded with coal are expected to arrive in September.
The project director informed that a long-term coal agreement is already under the process, but it would take some time.
Apparently to address the environmental issues in a more judicious manner, Pandey said, four huge sheds are being constructed having coal storage capacity of one million metric tons. "Once these sheds are completed, it will be good enough for running three-month operation of both the units," he added.
Replying to another question, he said that the production cost of per unit electricity from such plant depends on the imported coal price and it is also variable. "It depends on the cost of the coal outside and also depends on the market price of imported coal."
He also informed that for running operations of the plant, coal would be imported from countries like Indonesia and South Africa.
The Maitree Super Thermal Power Project is being constructed under the Government of India's Concessional Financing Scheme. It is being built by Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) for the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Private Ltd. (BIFPCL), a 50:50 Joint Venture Company between India's NTPC and Ltd and Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
