Bangladesh has limited fossil fuel resources and relies heavily on natural gas for electricity production, which is rapidly depleting. Renewable energy resources available in Bangladesh include solar, biomass, wind, and hydro power, which could help meet the country's growing energy demands in a more sustainable way. However, renewable energy development has lagged compared to other South Asian countries. Expanding the use of solar, wind, and biomass energy through policies that incentivize renewable energy production and reduce reliance on fossil fuels could help Bangladesh address its energy challenges.

1. FROM EDEN BUILDING TO MOTIJHEEL
Published: 12:29 AM, 10 January 2021
https://dailyasianage.com/news/251955/renewable-energy-in-bangladesh
Renewable Energy in Bangladesh
M S Siddiqui
At present, the primary energy resources include natural gas, oil, condensates, coal, peat etc.
The primary energy resource situation of Bangladesh is not good at all in comparison with world
energy. The proved reserved of oil, natural gas, coal, and hydropower in Bangladesh are limited
and larger scale of infrastructure development needed in the country.
Biomass or biofuel is the main source of renewable energy in rural area for both cooking and
electricity generation biofuel are used. Solar energy is another important energy resources in
Bangladesh and solar photovoltaic (PV) cell is one of the popular technology mainly used in rural
areas, hilly areas, and coastal areas in Bangladesh.
The fuel for major part of electricity production is natural gas and the gas is going to exhaust very
soon. Government has started import of LNG from other countries and the cost of imported LNG
is very high considering the huge investment in lending station and transmission pipelines.
The first National Energy Policy (NEP) in 1996, focuses to the urgency of ensuring proper
exploration, production, distribution and rational use of primary energy sources of gas and coal to
meet the growing energy demand of the country. The current electricity production is using the
fossil fuel-natural gas is expected to be exhausted very soon and therefore, Bangladesh would
be in need of alternative and sustainable energy sources such as renewable energy (RE) which
are low or zero polluting. The excess use of fossil fuel exposes the country to a high risk of
stranded assets as renewable energy continues to become cheaper and more efficient than
fossil fuel-based power going forward. The energy policy of 2018 aimed at increase the share of
RE upto 10% of the total production of electricity. The Solar energy alone is expected to account
for 35% of power-generating capacity additions worldwide, triggering investments in the order of
$3.7 trillion between 2015 and 2040.
RE is essential for energy access, energy security, reduce dependency on fossil fuels, mitigating
climate change by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and sustainability and socio-
economic benefits due to low-carbon economic growth and prosperity. RE such as solar, wind
energy can be used and extended in remote areas where it is too expensive to extend the
electricity power grid.
RE offers significant public health benefits to rural people, would facilitate educational and
livelihoods activities at nights in rural areas; would reduce time consuming firewood and water
collection by women for cooking and drinking; help reduce environmental degradation such as
desertification/deforestation and biodiversity depletion by preventing use of forest woods for fuel.
Therefore, RE would alleviate rural poverty, improve quality of life of rural women, men and
children, reduce air pollution, create local employment, and enhance food production of any
country.
The present production cost is very high and in order to supply electricity at a reasonable price,
the government spends enormous sums of money on subsidies to supply electricity to
consumers because it buys electricity at a high price from costly fuel oil based power generation
sources. In fiscal 2017-18, the government spent Tk 8,600 crore on subsidizing electricity

2. suppliers. There was no justification for the government to provide huge subsidies on fuel oil
based power generation neglecting the must less costly solar energy.
Alternately, the electricity generation using solar energy costs about Tk 30 per kilowatt, known as
unit, while fuel oil based power generation costs Tk 20-30 per unit. The cost electricity generation
using solar power could be brought down to below Tk 10 per unit with proper planning. If the
government diverts money spent on subsidies to subsidize solar power users their electricity
generation cost would drop to Tk four or five per unit. RE represents an increasingly cheap and
quicker-to-build response that can improve energy security and lessen the economic burden of
coal and LNG imports.
Bangladesh is spending on transmission and distribution gird for supplying electricity to different
part of the countries particularly in the rural areas need heavy investment. The RE don’t need
huge transmission and distribution power grid and would provide the best possible realistic
solution to the crisis since RE is produced in different part of the countries, where electricity is
short supply.
Priority should be given on diversification of available indigenous commercial energy resources.
RE is energy that is obtained from renewable resources, which are naturally restocked on a
human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves and geothermal heat. The present
renewable energy arrives from biogas, hydro power, solar and wind. Bangladesh is a subtropical
country, 70% of year sunlight is dropped in Bangladesh.
The renewable energy resources are natural resources, which have a vital role to meet up the
energy demand of Bangladesh. The available renewable energy of Bangladesh are solar,
biomass, wind, hydropower and geo-thermal energy and this are the potential renewable energy
to eradicate energy problem in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh also have another initiative and begins to explore possibility of more biomass, wind
power and the other renewable sources of energy. Bangladesh has huge biomass energy from
wastes of forests, crop and animal farms as well as human waste could provide renewable
energy in utilized in a planned way. Cattle dung, poultry droppings, and agricultural residues that
are available in plenty in rural Bangladesh can be used to produce biogas.
The wind energy also remained a neglected area in Bangladesh. The biofuel produced for bio-
product, bio-energy and bio-power [24]. Biofuel creates environment-friendly alternative
renewable fuel oil specially produced from (tallow, lard, white or yellow grease, poultry fats, or
fish oils) and mostly produced from natural plant oils. There is strong wind power potential flow in
particular during the months of April to September in costal Bangladesh. Due to relative flatness
of the country, Bangladesh has limited hydro power potentials.
As an agricultural country, Bangladesh possesses the potential for power generation from
biomass sources. Biomass Global energy demand has risen sharply over the years with
developing countries recording the greatest share in this trend. Cattle dung, agricultural relic,
poultry droppings, water hyacinth, rice husks etc. are available in Bangladesh for biomass power
generation. Common biomass resources are rice husk, crop residue, wood, jute stick, animal
waste, municipal waste, sugarcane biogases etc.
Bangladesh has plenty of sunshine and has huge opportunities to use solar energy or solar
photovoltaic or PV). Power generated using solar energy could meet the cities’ demand during
the peak hours besides feeding the rural areas outside the coverage of the national grid. This
would help the government slash huge subsidies it spends annually on fuel oil fired power
generation.
There is strong wind power potential flow in particular during the months of April to September in
costal Bangladesh. Due to relative flatness of the country, Bangladesh has limited hydro power
potentials.

3. Renewable energy progress in Bangladesh has lagged behind that of its South Asian neighbour
India which has a target to install 275 GW of renewable capacity by 2027. In addition, Pakistan is
due to release a new renewable energy policy in 2019 which is expected to significantly increase
its ambition and target 30% renewable energy capacity by 2030, up from 5% currently.
Bangladesh is situated between 20.30 and 26.38 degrees north latitude and 88.04 and 92.44
degrees east which is an ideal location for solar energy utilization.
For this reason, we can use solar panels to produce electricity largely. Solar radiation varies from
season to season in Bangladesh. Bangladesh receives an average daily solar radiation of 4-6.5
kWh/m2. Maximum amount and minimum on November-December-January in the following
figure.
Solar home system is a success story in Bangladesh and day by day, its popularity is increasing
in the rural areas, especially in the off-grid regions. Wind power is the conversion of wind energy
by wind turbines into a useful form, such as electricity or mechanical energy. The power is
directly proportional to the velocity of the wind. Large scale wind farms are connected to the local
power transmission network with small turbines used to provide electricity to isolated areas.
Bangladesh has a 724km long coastline and many small islands in the Bay of Bengal, where
strong south westerly trade wind and sea-breeze blow in the summer months and there is a
gentle north easterly trade wind and land breeze in winter months. Along the coastal area of
Bangladesh, the annual average wind speed at 30m height is more than 5 m/s. Wind speed in
northeaster parts in Bangladesh is above 4.5 m/s while for the other parts of the country wind
speed is around 3.5 m/s.
Bangladesh should formulate energy policy for 100 percent renewable energy such as biogas,
biofuel, solar energy, wind-powered electricity etc. It may achieve supply of necessary energy
with savings of huge transmission and distribution system and by withdrawing the subsidy from
purchase of electricity from different generators and supply energies at a reasonable price.
The writer is a legal economist.
Email: mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com