National grid failure: Power generation at unit 5 of Ghorashal power plant temporarily halted

If a unit of thermal power plant is not started immediately, it takes at least four to five days to fix the temperature level. As a result, power generation at unit 5 of Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant in Narsingdi has been stopped temporarily, according to power plant sources.

On Tuesday, the safety bulb burst as the temperature increased of the turbine of unit 5 of Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant in Narsingdi making the unit shut down. Later, since the unit could not be restarted, it lost its normal temperature. A temperature of 50 degrees is required for it to return to normalcy, which may take about a week, they said.

On Wednesday afternoon, the unit shut down again an hour after the members of the investigation committee of the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB), the country's only power transmission company, restarted it. As a result, the power generation in this unit has been stopped temporarily, reports our Narsingdi correspondent.

A senior official of the power plant, wishing not to be named, told The Daily Star, "The repair work of the unit was carried out till 1:00pm on Wednesday, a day after the national power grid disaster. Later, PGCB officials opened the unit at 1:15pm. But the temperature of the unit's turbine increased and it stopped again after an hour."

He said, "The temperature of the rotor has to be at least 50 degrees less than the temperature of the metal to run the unit, otherwise there will be a problem in the turbine."

Units 4 and 5 of the Ghorashal Thermal Power Plant shut down suddenly due to a power failure in the national grid at 2:05pm on Tuesday. Later, within an hour, unit 4 with a capacity of 230MW was commissioned, but unit 5 of 180MW could not be commissioned. Officials said it was not possible to start it immediately as the safety bulb of the unit burst.

On that day, due to the disaster in the national grid, all the areas of Dhaka, Chattogram, Cumilla, Mymensingh, and Sylhet divisions were simultaneously without electricity. Although the power supply started after 9:00pm after the renovation, it took a few more hours for the power plants to return to full load one by one.

About 65 percent of the people of the country had to remain without electricity for about 8 hours due to lack of electricity in the eastern grid. Some areas were in darkness for longer than that.

A six-member probe committee formed by the PGCB visited the Ghorashal thermal power plant on Wednesday to investigate the reason. At around 11:30am, they, led by PGCB Executive Director Yakub Elahi Chowdhury, visited the control room of Ghorashal Power Plant.

At that time, the head of the investigation committee, Yakub Elahi Chowdhury, said that due to the power failure in the national grid, the power control rooms of some power plants of the country are being examined. After all the examination, it will be known what caused the disaster.

Meanwhile, Jahirul Islam, chief engineer of Ghorashal Power Plant, told The Daily Star, "Work is underway to start unit number 5, which is closed."

However, he could not shed any light as to when it would be restarted.