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Renewable energy: Next global driving force

Published : Saturday, 13 November, 2021 at 12:00 AM  Count : 813
Md Zillur Rahaman
Md Zillur Rahaman

Md Zillur Rahaman


A 13-day climate conference called 'COP-26' has started in Glasgow, Scotland organized by Britain. Now all eyes of the world are on this global climate summit of the United Nations. The focus of the discussion is on reducing fossil fuels to zero carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy (RE) and there is a lot of bargaining going on.

On the one hand, free carbon emissions continue in the developed world, and on the other, the sufferings and health risks of poor nations have increased. For these reasons, RE is now considered a timely, environment friendly energy and carbon emission-free component. The UN and global environmental groups have been encouraging and emphasizing on the use of RE to tackle climate change and reach a sustainable energy system.
In fact, Renewable Energy (RE) is a source of energy that can be reused in a short period of time and the source of energy is not depleted. Various natural sources such as sunlight and heat, wind flow, water flow, bio-energy, geothermal, ocean waves, ocean heat, tides, urban waste, hydrogen fuel cells, etc. are considered as RE sources. RE is now widely accepted in the world as opposed to the fossil fuels that have been used for so long to meet the electricity and energy needs of civilization.

Bangladesh, one of the victims of climate change, is not lagging behind in terms of RE. Bangladesh is being assisted in this regard by several development partners and organizations including Germany. The government has also taken several steps to produce and use environment friendly fuels.

Private enterprises played a pivotal role in setting up the first solar home system in Sylhet in the mid-eighties. Subsequently, the Solar Home System (SHS) program was extensively expanded by Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCL) which is currently the largest RE program in Bangladesh since the launch of SHS in 1996. About 4.50 million solar home systems have been installed so far and the number is increasing.

The RE Policy came into force on 18 December, 2008 to ensure the use and development of RE in Bangladesh. The Government of Bangladesh has enacted the Sustainable and RE Development Authority - SREDA Act-2012 to identify solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, biomass, biofuel, geothermal, river currents, ocean waves, etc. as RE sources. In 2016, the Power System Master plan (PSMP) set a target of 10 percent (2470 MW) of total power generation capacity by 2021 for RE shares, but due to some limitations, the target was not achieved.

According to the government, after the formation of PSMP in 2016, the government had planned to generate a total of 2110.65 MW of electricity for the implementation of the solar park project by connecting a total of 36 grids in the public and private sectors in the last 5-6 years. Although contracts have been signed for 26 projects so far, only five projects have been implemented so far.

The hope is that the world's largest emitters of carbon dioxide are using the most RE, because of the pressure from the people of their own country and international environmentalists. The USA, China, Germany, Russia, India are using the most RE in the world. Many states in the USA have separate legal obligations and feed-in tariffs for the use of RE and China has the largest hydropower plant in the world.

China has also set up the largest wind and solar power plants. More than 100 coal-fired power plants have been shut down in China. India currently has the world's largest solar power plant with a generating capacity of 648 MW. Most solar panels have been installed in Germany. The Nordic countries are helping to expand it by enacting RE-friendly legislation. At the same time, most of the developed and developing countries around the world have adopted policies and plans to increase RE.

Bangladesh lags far behind South Asian neighbours Pakistan and India in the use of RE in power generation. Data analysis shows that Bangladesh generates three percent of its electricity from RE, compared to 24.16 percent of its total power generation capacity in India, which is about 90,399 MW. The total power generation capacity of the country is 3, 74,199 MW (excluding hydropower). On the other hand, Pakistan's total power generation capacity is 37,402 MW (excluding solar and wind) as against five percent (1,870 MW) from renewable sources.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, in 2010, about 90 percent of the people in the cities had access to electricity and 42 percent in the villages. Seven years later, in 2017, about 76% of the people got electricity. Although the power infrastructure is not flawless and the result is still load shedding. In this case, setting up more thermal power plants may be a good solution. However, in the future, RE will be the main source and driving force of electricity.

Bangladesh is very suitable for solar power because the coastal areas of the country get about 11 hours of clear sunlight every day. The rate of insulation in these areas is 3.8 kw/m2/day and 6.4 kw/m2/day. The Bangladesh government has already introduced solar home systems or SHS for short, for power supply that is not connected to the power grid.

This programme has helped more than 4 million families. About 50,000 SHSs are being set up every month since 2009. The World Bank has called it the fastest growing solar home system activity in the world. Clearly, in the electrification roadmap, coal-fired power plants have become undeveloped in Bangladesh. So RE will be the main driving force and base of the future.

However, there are some weaknesses in this case. Bangladesh is known for its monsoon winds and solar energy is highly dependent on the weather and the weather in Bangladesh is cloudy at certain times of the year. RE and solar plants are also very expensive. Yet most of the vulnerabilities can be solved through large solar power projects. RE is now widely accepted in the world and most countries have set targets for RE use to meet their electricity and energy needs.

Energy experts say the use of RE in Bangladesh has not reached the desired level due to lack of commitment at the policy-making level, land crisis, lack of coordination among state institutions and a strict bureaucratic mindset for conventional energy. However, RE in Bangladesh has now reached the take-off stage. At the take-off stage, all sectors have to face huge challenges. If these challenges can be tackled, RE will be the driving force of the future in Bangladesh.
The writer is a banker and freelancer



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