Second unit of Payra power plant: Destined to go into operation from Nov

The second and the final unit of the country's largest coal-fired power plant at Payra in southern Bangladesh is expected to initiate commercial operation from November next, around one year after the initial commissioning schedule.

"We have started test run of the 660-megawatt capacity second unit of the Payra power plant last week," managing director of the BCPCL A M Khurshedul Alam told the FE.

He said the unit has already synchronized with the national power grid and generated around 200 MW of electricity on the first day of its test run on Wednesday.

After two years of test run, he said, the unit will be ready for initiating commercial operation in November.

The Bangladesh-China Power Company Limited, or BCPCL, the owner of the Payra coal-fired power plant, had inked the $1.56 billion contract with a Chinese consortium for engineering, procurement and construction of the 1,320MW coal-fired power plant near the Payra seaport in Patuakhali district on March 29, 2016.

The first 660 MW unit of the power plant started commercial operation in May 2020, around eleven months after the initial schedule to initiate operation in June, 2019.

The BCPCL, a 50:50 joint venture between the state-owned North-West Power Generation Company Ltd, or NWPGCL, and China's China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation, or CMC, is implementing the power plant project.

The Payra coal-fired power plant is the country's first power plant to run on imported coal.

The BCPCL is now importing coal from Indonesia. It has also plan to import coal from Australia.

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 project as the engineering, procurement and construction, or EPC, contractor.

The EPC contractor has made commitment to invest 15 per cent of the EPC cost from its own resources, which will be reimbursed after financial closing, as per the deal.

The project is being implemented on a 30:70 equity debt 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 has commitment to 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 BCPCL provides 20 per cent equity to implement the power plant project, and the remaining 80 per cent is being sourced as loan 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.

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

Initial talks to implement the power plant project started around five years back with signing of a memorandum of understanding, or MoU, between the NWPGCL and the CMC on March 19, 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.

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