Power generation at Dinajpur's Barapukuria coal-based thermal power plant was fully suspended yesterday after its third unit was forced to shut down due to a technical glitch.

The unit had stopped operating from 6:00pm, our Dinajpur correspondent reports quoting Md Abu Bakkar Siddique, the power plant's Chief Engineer.

The Barapukuria plant, managed by Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), has the capacity to produce 575-megawatt of electricity from its three units.

The 275-MW third unit is operated by the Chinese contracting firm, Harbin International. The two other units have the capacity of producing 125MW electricity each.  

However, it used to generate 200 MW of electricity daily, which was supplied to the national grid.

This latest shutdown has further exacerbated power outages, resulting in frequent power outages in the greater Rangpur area.

Load-shedding or gap in power demand and supply was calculated at around 2,200MW last night, which is the highest in recent weeks, according to data of Power Grid Bangladesh PLC

The unit that shut down yesterday was the last operational unit of the power plant, as its first and second units went out of service long ago due to technical glitches, the chief engineer said. Each of the three units requires two electro-hydraulic oil pumps to function, which supply oil to the units for power generation. Since 2022, one of the pumps in the third unit remained out of service, and the plant was running depending on a single pump, leading to operational risks. Despite repeated notifications to the contractor, the problems remained unresolved.

After a 36-day shutdown, the third unit resumed operation on Friday (September 6), but its last oil pump broke down yesterday evening, halting production completely, the chief engineer said.

He said they had informed the Chinese contractor about the issue, and they requested two weeks to resolve it.

The plant will be able to resume operations once the necessary parts arrive from China.