The 1320-MW Rampal power plant, a joint venture between state-owned power companies of India and Bangladesh, shut down early Friday, drawing on the force majeure clause of the power purchase agreement between the parties.

Ziaur Rahman, the chief procurement officer of the Bangladesh India Friendship Company Limited which owns the power plant, confirmed the closure due to the coal shortage linked to the ongoing dollar crisis.

‘We are trying an alternate way to bring in fresh supply of coal as soon as possible,’ said Zia.

The full operation of each of the two units – 660MW – of the power plant requires around 6,000 tonnes of coal daily. The power plant exhausted its coal supply completely.

A new coal import deal might take over a month to complete, raising the ominous prospect of the power plant remaining out of operation through the second half of March when days would start getting hotter.

The power plant officials, however, are confident about bringing the power plant back to operation in about a week.

The state-owned Janata Bank, responsible for transactions on behalf of the BIFCL, was failing to release enough dollar for coal purchase, officials at the power plant claimed.

The exchange rate of the dollar fixed by the Bangladesh Bank is lower than the rate at which the JB can buy it from the market, they said.

The closure of the plant occurred amid another base-load 1,496-MW coal power plant, owned by India’s Adani group,

operating at half the capacity, reporting machine problems.

The Godda-based Adani power plant has been supplying around 700MW since September 2024, threatening to stop supplying power unless its due worth $800 million was paid.

Frequent closures have accompanied the Rampal power plant ever since it rolled into operation with its first unit in December 2022. By September 2023, the plant was shut down eight times, including five times for technical problems.

Electrical engineers highlighted the plant’s inability to burn the minimum amount of fuel that a base-load power plant must keep for running smoothly as one of the causes leading to the closures.

They also called for testing the plant’s machinery and the quality of coal burnt there.

Restarting a base-load power plant frequently means burning additional fuel, which is particularly harmful to countries such as Bangladesh, particularly when in the midst of the dollar crisis.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, India’s largest government-owned power generation equipment manufacturer, built the power plant at a cost of $2 billion, including $1.6 billion provided as loans by the Exim Bank of India.

This is, however, the first time the Rampal power plant is closed drawing on the force majeure clause, which relieves parties in the deal of the requirement of compensating each other because of a disruption in daily business activity.

‘The clause generally refers to a situation beyond the control of any of the parties in the deal disrupting daily business,’ said Bangladesh Working Group on Ecology and Development member secretary Hasan Mehedi.

The previous closures were always attributed to fuel shortages or technical problems, implying the power plant’s eligibility to receive capacity charge.

With the force majeure clause in effect, the Rampal power plant will not get capacity charge. The clause, theoretically, can remain in effect for six months.

Widespread violations of environmental regulation recently steered the media spotlight on the Rampal power plant, especially for the power plant for months not using effluent treatment plant and releasing used water directly into nearby rivers.

Bangladesh’s current installed power generation capacity is 27884.7MW. But the inability to generate about 11,500MW resulted in frequent power cuts even during winter.

The power demand is expected to exceed 17,500MW in summer.

News Link: Rampal power plant, jointly run by Bangladesh-India cos, shuts down