<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Payra Thermal Power Plant's operation shut down completely at 12:05 pm today, worsening the already severe load shedding in Dhaka city and elsewhere, according to BPDB officials.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They said that due to the shutdown of the 2nd unit of Payra power plant, the country’s load shedding increased to 2675 MW at 12 pm today, which was 2287 MW on Sunday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">It means the country had to experience 388 MW of added load shedding due to the closure of Payra power plant's operations, said an official of BPDB referring to the data of the National Load Despatch Centre (NLDC).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said the country generated 12099 MW of electricity against a demand of 14900 at 12 pm today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">NLDC’s evening forecast shows that the country’s demand will go up to 15800 MW when generation is expected to be 14,400 MW.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, officials said the country may experience more than 3500 MW of load shedding in the evening peak period. UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>