The overall progress of the 1200-megawatt Matarbari coal-fired power plant project is now around 42 percent while the implementation of Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contract are around 52.11 percent.
The Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh Limited (CPGCBL), the implementing agency, has a target to go for operation of the power plant from January 2024.
Talking to BSS, CPGCBL Executive Director (Project) Abul Kalam Azad said despite the Covid-19 pandemic, they are making good progress as per their schedule and they have already completed the construction of port.
“Commercial operation of the port has not yet started due to infrastructure. But we have already received 14 mother vessels of our project goods,” he added.
He informed that the plant is expected to account for 10 percent of the total generation capacity of Bangladesh.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the project titled ‘Matarbari 2×600 MW Ultra Super Critical Coal Fired Power’ involving Taka 35,984.46 crore (equivalent to $4.5bn) in 2014.
It is considered to be the country’s most expensive power generation project as it has included the construction of a berthing port for handling imported coal.
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a Japanese donor agency, is providing Taka 28,939.03 crore for the project located at Matarbari and Dhalghata under Moheshkhaliupazila in Cox’s Bazar while CPGCBL will finance Taka 4,926.66 crore from its owned fund.
The Matarbari project will be an Ultra Super Critical Technology (USCT)-based power plant with 41.99 percent energy efficiency against the average 34 percent efficiency in coal-power projects.
The main activities of this project, having two units each capacity 600 MW, are construction of power plant (civil), jetty and channel, setting up of power plant boiler (EPC part), establishment of power plant turbine and generator (EPC part), and power plant coal and produced ash management (EPC part).
Matarbari thermal power plant is being developed on a 1,500-acre site with two thermal units based on ultra-supercritical coal-fired technology, having an installed capacity of 600MW each.
A consortium of Sumitomo, Toshiba and IHI are implementing the engineering, procurement and construction works of the project.
