The government has formed a high-powered committee for strategic policy formation to ensure level playing field for all in renewable energy (RE) sector.
* Nearly 47 per cent of all installed solar home systems are now non-functional over battery failure
* Bangladesh currently has 4,551 net metering rooftop installations with a combined capacity of 213.3 MW, with 1,531 units installed in 2025
* In Pakistan, 7.3 million households connected to solar power systems by 2025
“It is fact that the proposed tax and VAT would not help small stakeholders in this sector, we are working on with the collaboration with the private sector thus everyone will get the benefit of the government announced in RE,” Dr. Ashraful Alam, Member Renewable Energy, Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA) said at a seminar titled Solar Revolution in Pakistan in the Eyes of Country's Leading CSO Lessons for Bangladesh from National Budget Perspective, on Tuesday organized by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).
CPD called for sweeping policy reforms to scale up rooftop solar adoption in Bangladesh, saying that the country risks repeating the retention failures of its off-grid Solar Home System (SHS) era unless structural barriers in financing, taxation, and regulation are urgently addressed.
Muhammad Basit Ghauri, Manager Special Initiatives and China programme Renewables first of Pakistan presented paper titled ‘Solar Rush in Pakistan’ CPD Research Associate Atikuzzaman Shazeed also presented a paper there.
Asif Shahriar of IDCOL, David Hasnat, president of Bangladesh independent power producer association Mostafa Al Mahmud president BSREA, Dr. Ashraful Alam, Member Renewable Energy, Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA) also spokes.
Dr. Ashraful Alam said Bangladesh will take the good examples from the Pakistan’s journey towards RE.
CPD’s researcher Atikuzzaman Shazeed said Bangladesh's solar energy journey from the off-grid SHS programme launched in 2003, which electrified over 20 million people to the collapse of that model as the national grid reached rural areas, and the subsequent emergence of rooftop solar as the new frontier.
Taking part in the discussion, Chief Whip of Parliament Nurul Islam Moni said the government is placing the highest priority on renewable energy as part of its broader goal of transforming Bangladesh into a humanitarian welfare state.
Renewable energy, particularly solar power, would play a crucial role in building the foundation of a sustainable and welfare-oriented economy, he said.
SHS installations peaked at 853,000 units in 2013 before plummeting to just 3,455 by 2018, a 99.6 percent decline in five years, as grid electricity rendered the off-grid model obsolete.
According to CPD's SHS Survey 2025, nearly 47 per cent of all installed solar home systems are now non-functional, largely due to battery failure and the absence of any structured transition or retrofitting pathway.
