PM to inaugurate first unit of Matarbari coal-fired plant in Dec

The first unit of Matarbari coal-fired power plant situated at Maheshkhali of Cox’s Bazar district is likely to go into production by the December this year. If so, then 600 MW of electricity will be added  to the national grid.

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the plant, project officials have told reporters.

A ship carrying 64,300 mts of coal for the Matarbari plant had arrived from Indonesia on June 23.

The 1200 MW power plant has been built on 1,414 acres of land in Matarbari and Dhalghata unions of Maheshkhali upazila of Cox’s Bazar district.

Construction of this power plant with Japanese funding on the coast of Cox’s Bazar seven years ago, work has also started on the construction of port infrastructure and jetty for coal offloading from ships.

Meanwhile the construction work of the jetty for the coal discharge with the power plant is almost finished. Vessels have also started sailing at the jetty. The project has changed the entire landscape of the area, said officials.

Some 13,104 tons of coal will be required daily to generate electricity at full scale. Coal discharge jetties and silos have been constructed for this.

Coal required for 60 days has been kept in the huge silos. Up to 80,000 ton capacity mother vessels can directly enter the coal jetty. And it will take one and a half to two days to unload the coal from the mother vessel.

And two separate ashponds are kept to store ash for a lifetime of 25 years of the power plant. One has an area of 90 acres, and another spread over 600 acres. Coal yard has been prepared on 80 acres of land for coal storage.

Earlier a loan agreement on the project was signed between the Government of Bangladesh and JICA on June 16, 2014. And the estimated project cost is woth at Tk 51,800 crores.

According to project sources, 95 per cent of the jetty and physical infrastructure work has already been completed and 90 per cent of the overall physical infrastructure work has been done.

Executive director Nazmul Huq, Matarbari coal-fired plant project said that is expecting to inaugurate the project by The PM Hasina in December.

He added, ‘but we want to add 600 MW power from here before inauguration and that will happen. The first unit of the Matarbari coal-fired power plant is scheduled to be commissioned in January 2024, but we expect to be fully operational by this December’. Also He mentioned that the second unit will be commissioned in next July.