Payra power plant to be commissioned in late Jan

The power unit with a capacity of 660 megawatts at Payra is expected to be commissioned later this month in what will be the country's largest electricity plant.

But the power to be generated from the plant might generate 'extra electricity' due to lower demand compared with overall generation.

The country's electricity generation capacity will rise to 20,127mws with the commissioning of the plant on January 27 against the present average daily peak demand of around 6,800mws. The evening peak demand is 8,800mws.

It will require coal import worth US$122.40 million (Tk 10.40 billion) a year to run the power plant.

"We've planned to commission the first unit of the 1,320-mw Payra power plant on January 27," managing director of Bangladesh-China Power Company Limited, or BCPCL, A M Khurshedul Alam told the FE.

To ensure smooth operations of the unit, test run has already started.

The partial commissioning of the Payra plant project in southern Patuakhali was delayed for physical and technical constraints.

The delay was caused by the presence of waterways and non-availability of transmission lines needed to evacuate electricity generated by the plant.

When contacted, managing director of Power Grid Company of Bangladesh Golam Kibria said the presence of several rivers hindered the installation of transmission lines.

But the state grid operator could complete the Patuakhali (Pyra)- Gopalganj 400 kilovolt transmission line spanning 163 kilometres on Tuesday, paving the way for electricity generation from the first unit of the coal-fired power plant.

The BCPCL, a joint venture between the state-owned North-West Power Generation Company Ltd (NWPGCL) and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) of China, is implementing the power plant.

The company has already imported around 160,000 tonnes of coal from Indonesia by December for commissioning the $ 1.98 billion-plant.

The second unit having the similar capacity is expected to go online within this year.

The consortium of the China Energy Engineering Group, the Northeast Electric Power Construction Co Ltd, and the China National Energy Engineering & Construction Co Ltd is implementing the power plant as the engineering, procurement and construction, EPC, contractor.

The construction contract between the BCPCL and the consortium was signed on March 29, 2016.

The contractor is investing around 15 per cent of the construction cost from its own resources, which will be reimbursed after financial closing in accordance with the deal.

The project is being implemented on a 70:30 debt equity ratio, meaning the NWPGCL and the CMC will have to provide 30 per cent fund of the total project cost, and mobilise the remaining 70 per cent from external sources.

The plant will use bituminous and sub-bituminous coal, and its expected efficiency level is 48.05 per cent. It will require around 12,000 tonnes of coal daily to generate electricity.

The plant operator is providing 20 per cent equity to implement the project, and the remaining 80 per cent is being sourced as loans from Exim Bank of China.

The government has issued a state guarantee worth US$ 1.0 billion in favour of the Chinese loan for implementing the power plant project.

The government has allocated around 998.77 acres of land for implementing the project on a turnkey basis.

The initial talks to implement the power plant started around five years back with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two companies in early 2014.

Its land development and protection project involving Tk 7.83 billion was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on October 21, 2014.

This will be the first power plant to be run fully on imported coal.

Currently, the country has five coalmines, but the extraction is limited to only one mine at Barapukuria in Dinajpur, utilising the underground mining method.

The Barapukuria Coal Mining Company is annually extracting around 1.0 million tonnes of coal, most of which is consumed by the nearby Barapukuria thermal power plant.

According to the Power System Master Plan, the government has a plan to generate almost half the country's overall electricity from coal, officials said.

To implement the plan, the government will have to generate around 12,000 megawatts of electricity from coal by 2024, 20,000mws by 2030, and 30,000mws by 2041.

But the country has only three coal-fired power plants with a combined generation capacity of only 524mws against the installed capacity of 17,685mws.

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