The 1,346MW coal-based Adani power plant reported encountering technical trouble in starting its second unit following Bangladesh鈥檚 request to run the power plant in India鈥檚 Jharkhand at its full capacity.
The Adani power plant shut down one of its two units in early November after Bangladesh failed to clear its dues, the amount of which is debated by the two parties.
Bangladesh is expecting a surge in its power demand soon with the last month of the winter season passing amid forecast of the temperature soon going up.
鈥楾here was a technical problem after Adani had started full operation on February 10, a day after we made the request to increase their supply,鈥� Bangladesh Power Development Board鈥檚 chairman Rezaul Karim told 抖阴精品.
A special team of engineers is expected to examine the problem today, he said, adding that the starting of full operation depended on fixing the technical glitch.
Bangladesh owes $550 million to Adani, the boss of the state-owned BPDB said.
A request sent to the company responsible for Adani鈥檚 public relations for a comment over the matter was not answered.
Earlier in September, last year the group鈥檚 chairman Gautam Adani wrote to interim government chief adviser Muhammad Yunus to clear his $800 million outstanding bills.
On Tuesday, Adani supplied about 740MW of electricity, maintaining the level of supply since it reduced its supply citing non-payment of dues in early November last year.
The BPDB officials said that they were making regular payments but there were some controversies that they expected to resolve through negotiations.
Bangladesh expressed its surprise and shock after Adani gave a fresh deadline to get a road map on the payment of its dues by November 7 or face complete suspension in power supply.
This was the second deadline given by the company. The earlier deadline expired on October 31, leading to the suspension of one of the two units.
Experts said that Bangladesh could have managed its power demand without receiving any supply from the Adani power plant had it provided enough supply of fuel for other plants.
The dollar crisis is standing in the way of providing uninterrupted energy supply to power plants.
While issuing the second deadline, Adani claimed that its outstanding bill amounted to $850million, Indian media reported.
Bangladesh at the time said that the actual amount was over $600 million.
Power deal signed with Adani has been described as hugely discriminatory by energy experts.
Bangladesh would have to buy 34 per cent of electricity of the plant鈥檚 capacity or would have to face fines under the deal with Adani.
Even if Bangladesh had bought the required amount, the country would have to pay capacity charge.
The agreement has also deprived Bangladesh of taking any action if Adani abruptly suspends its operation.
The power development board has already accused Adani of inflating its bill by about a third taking advantage of the power purchase agreement signed under the direct supervision of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, ousted on August 5 amid a student-led mass uprising, and her Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
The agreement, which allowed Adani to greatly manipulate coal prices also made headlines in the national and international media for clauses highly discriminatory to Bangladesh. Under the PPA, the plant was established with a $2 billion investment to earn Adani $12 billion in its lifetime of 25 years.
Bangladesh鈥檚 current installed capacity is 27,884MW.
The current maximum demand is around 11,500MW. The demand is set to rapidly rise by March, when the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is set to begin.
Even with the demand remaining so low, nearly 100MW of load shedding was recorded on Tuesday.
Immediately after Hasina fled to India after the overthrow of her government, India changed its power export rules allowing Adani, which set up the power plant exclusively for producing power for Bangladesh, to sell electricity domestically.