The Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company Limited (BIFPCL), unit 1 has started power transmission directly to Dhaka through 400 kV TL Gopalganj-Aminbazar at 3:46 from Friday.
"We are set to announce the first unit's commercial production date (COD) by this December, earlier, the load test of the unit has reached 660MW on November 25 in phases," BIFPCL Deputy General Manager Anwarul Azim said.
According to him the second unit is supposed to go into commercial production in June 2023.
The BIFPCL authority is expected to supply electricity to the national grid commercially soon, however, 80 per cent work of the second unit has been completed.
"We are waiting for the clearance certificate from the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC), they will issue the certificate (after several stages of testing) of commercial power generation capacity," Azim said.
BIFPCL, a Bangladesh-India joint venture power project was started the construction process of the coal-fired 1,320 MW two-unit power plant on 24 April 2017 at Rampal. Bangladesh and India signed an agreement in January 2010, formed a joint venture company Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company (BIFPC) on 29 January 2012.
On 1 August 2013, the Department of Environment gave clearance to construct a coal-based Rampal Power Plant in the Sapmari-Katakhali and Kairgdashkathi areas of Rampal upazila of Bagerhat district along the Mongla-Khulna highway for meeting the growing electricity demand of the country.
