Two units of Ashuganj Power Station shut down

Two major units of the Ashuganj Power Station Company Limited in Brahmanbaria went out of order on Friday afternoon following a fault in the national grid line, reducing electricity supply by about 500 megawatts.

According to officials, the shutdown occurred around 2:45pm after a loud sound was heard, forcing the 400MW North and East units to stop sequentially. As a result, power generation at the plant—whose total capacity is about 1,500MW—dropped to roughly 225MW.

Sources in the plant’s technical department said that three of the five operational units had been producing about 750MW of electricity before the disruption. However, the sudden shutdown of the two 400MW units significantly reduced supply to the national grid.

Two other units at the facility were already out of operation due to gas shortages, including the 400MW South unit and a 50MW gas engine unit.

Executive Director (Technical) of the company, engineer Md Abdul Majid, said the outage occurred after a fault developed on the Ashuganj–Bhulta 400kV grid line.

He added that the units themselves remain operational, and engineers are investigating the grid line problem.

Efforts are underway to repair the fault and restore the two units by Friday night, he said.