Barapukuria coal power plant shuts down completely

Power generation at the country’s only coal-fired Barapukuria Thermal Power Plant in Parbatipur, Dinajpur, has come to a complete halt after a boiler tube burst.

The final operational unit of the plant shut down on Sunday, January 18, in the afternoon, rendering all units inoperative.

The matter was confirmed on Monday, January 19, by the plant’s chief engineer Abu Bakkar Siddique. He said the 525-megawatt power station has four units. Of these, Unit 1 with a capacity of 125 megawatts went offline at 11:15am on Sunday. The remaining units had already been out of operation for various reasons.

Sources said the plant has two 125-megawatt units and one 275-megawatt unit. Unit 2 has been completely non-functional since 2020, while Unit 3, with a capacity of 275 megawatts, has remained shut since October last year due to overhauling and may take around two more months to resume operations. As a result, the shutdown of Unit 1 brought power generation at the plant to a standstill.

Abu Bakkar Siddique said the temperature at the section of the boiler where the tube burst is around 1,000 degrees Celsius. Once the temperature returns to normal, engineers will enter the boiler to identify the damaged area. The repair timeline will depend on the number of damaged tubes. He added that efforts are underway to restore power generation as quickly as possible.