A coal-fired Payra power plant of 1,320 megawatts (MW) in Dhankhali area under ​​Kalapara upazila of Patuakhali district is awaiting inauguration.

Already connected to the national grid, the plant's commercial supply is soon to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said AM Khorshedul Alam, chief executive officer of North West Power Generation Company, one initiator of the construction.

Some 163 kilometres (km) of transmission lines connect the plant to a Gopalganj grid. Another 85km of lines are being set up to take it up to Amin Bazar in Dhaka.

The power plant's first unit has been supplying 660MW of electricity to the national grid since May 15 last year after being constructed in four years.

The second unit started production on December 8, 2020.

The plant is currently generating 1,000MW on an experimental basis, burning through some 13,000 tonnes of coal a day, generating 180 tonnes of fly and bottom ash as byproducts.

Fly ash is a substance containing aluminous and siliceous material that forms cement in the presence of water.

A company buys fly ash from the plant, said Shahmoni Ziko, assistant manager of Bangladesh-China Power Company (Pvt), which built the plant. The amount of byproduct purchased is yet to be known.

The plant has a 76.30 acre dumping zone where 25 years' byproduct can be kept, added Ziko.

The plant is currently importing coal from Indonesia. It has its own jetty whose conveyor belts can unload 3,200 metric tonnes of coal in an hour from four vessels simultaneously.

An agreement was signed between Bangladesh's North-West Power Generation Company and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation to set up the power plant during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to China in 2014.

Later, Bangladesh-China Power Company (Pvt) was formed.

This company built the plant on 982.77 acres of land at a cost of around Tk 20,000 crore or $2.46 billion. Of the amount, $1.96 billion has been loaned by The Export-Import Bank of China.

Rezwan Iqbal Khan, executive engineer of the power plant, said on October 14, 2016, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese President Xi Jinping laid the foundation stone of the power plant.

The Bangladesh-China Power Company (Pvt) completed the construction work of two units on time, he said.