Rampal plant unit shuts down over technical glitch

 
The power situation in the country has once again worsened on Sunday morning when a unit of the coal-fired Rampal power plant tripped due to technical glitch, cut 600 MW from the national grid.

However, the 2nd unit of Adani power plant resumed supply to national grid around noon after a three-day outage caused by a technical problem.

According to sources at the BaPower Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), one of the two units at the Rampal plant suddenly tripped around 11:30am. Before the fault, the plant was generating more than 1,100MW. After the unit shut down, output fell below 600MW.

Meanwhile, Adani Power's Unit-2, which had gone offline late Wednesday night due to a technical complication, began supplying electricity to the national grid around 12pm on Sunday.

BPDB and PGCB data showed Adani was supplying a maximum of about 760MW early in the day. By 2pm, combined supply from its two units exceeded 1,000MW. Officials expressed hope that supply would increase further in the afternoon.

Late last month, generation rose to about 900MW during the day and up to 1,200MW from evening to midnight.

On Wednesday night, the Adani plant's total generation exceeded 1,400MW. However, after one unit shut down, total output later fell below 750MW.

The Adani Group plant has two units of 800MW each, with a total generation capacity of 1,600MW. Adani signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with BPDB in 2017. The plant has previously supplied more than 1,500MW to Bangladesh as demand required.

BPDB and PGCB sources said supply from Adani has been increasing gradually since the second unit restarted. At the same time, coordinated efforts are under way to restart the Rampal unit and bring it back into generation quickly.