Chittagong Bureau :
The power generations in the port city come down by 50 percent of its total capacity following the close down of four power plants.
These power plants were closed lack of gas supply. PDB sources said there are 13 power plants under public and private sectors having generation capacity of 1200 MWs but the generations recorded only 600 MWs from Friday last.
This power shut down will continue till mitigation of gas crisis , PDB sources said. The closed gas based power plants are – Sikalbaha ST Power Plants, Sikalbaha Termal Power Plants, two units of Raozan Thermal Power plants. Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Ltd sources said following the govt directives, the two giant urea fertilizer factory in Chittagong was commissioned recently with required gas supply by closing these four gas based power plants.
A total of 115 million cft gas is being supplied to KAFCO and CUFL fertilizer factories. Besides, the three units of Kaptai Hydro electric project remained suspended due to technical glitch .
The total generation capacity of these closed power plants is 550 MWs, sources said. Assistant Director(Public Relations) of PDB Moniruzzaman told this reporter that the total demand of power in Chittagong is about 800 MWs but supplied yesterday 600 MW thus load shedding experienced about 200 MWs caused immense sufferings of the city dwellers.
Industrial units are the worst sufferers of power beside the domestic consumers, different sources said.
