In 2003, Bangladesh government’s Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) initiated the Solar Home System (SHS) program to ensure access to clean electricity for the energy starved off-grid rural areas of Bangladesh, and supplement government’s vision to ensure electricity to all by 2021 – the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence.
By the end of 2014, about 3.5 million households – representing 10% of the nation’s total and approximately 15 million people – had solar home systems installed. Each solar home system uses a solar panel installed on the roof of an individual home. A 250 W panel can produce up to 1 KW of power a day.
IDCOL has a target to finance 6 million residential solar home systems by 2017, with an estimated generation capacity of 220 MW of electricity – the total capacity of present solar home systems is around 135 MW. At current rates, IDCOL is installing around 60,000 new residential solar home systems a month.
The smallest solar home system, which can power two 2.5 W LED lights, costs about $105. A 100 W panel costs about $640. To make it accessible to the poor families, the government is providing low-interest loans to private companies to import and install solar panels for SHS, while businesses offer households low down payments and the option to repay the cost of a SHS over a period of one to three years.
The SHS program, which replaces 180,000 tons of kerosene having an estimated value of $225 million per year, has been acclaimed as one of the largest and the fastest growing off-grid renewable energy programs in the world.
To attain ‘electricity to all’, however, the country needs to increase its GDP growth to 10% from the current rate of 6%; and triple its energy generation by 2030. It will need to generate 20,000 MW by 2021 and 34,000 MW by 2030 to attain the desired rate of economic development. The plan envisages 50% of power produced from coal, 25% from domestic natural gas, 10% from oil and 15% from other sources, including nuclear, renewable energy and other imports.
This is a huge undertaking for Bangladesh, especially since the country is the eighth most populated country in the world – at 160 million citizens. Today, the country’s power generation capacity is 10,341 MW. Of total generated power, 65% comes from domestic natural gas, 25% from imported liquid fuel, 2.5% from coal, 1.39% from hydropower and the remaining 5% from renewable energy and other imports.
In addition to the SHS program, the government has constructed a 100 KW solar power plant in Sandwip Island, in the Bay of Bengal, which began operating in 2010. There are plans to create 50 more mini solar grids around the country by 2017, with the combined capacity to run more than 1,500 irrigation pumps.
Dipal C. Barua, Founder & Chairman of the Bright Green Energy Foundation, and first winner of the Zayed Future Energy Prize, told Reuters, “My dream is to empower 75 million Bangladeshis through renewable energy by 2020 and make Bangladesh the first comprehensive solar nation of the world.” Barua’s Grameen Shakti, a nonprofit organization based in Bangladesh, has brought solar power systems to about 1.5 million Bangladeshi homes – about 8.4 million people.
Get Your Anonymous T-Shirt / Sweatshirt / Hoodie / Tanktop, Smartphone or Tablet Cover or Mug In Our Spreadshirt Shop! Click Here
This Article (How Bangladesh Is Trying To Become World’s First Solar Nation) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ.com.
Please don’t confuse power and energy with one another. The unit of power is “Watt” and that of energy “Joule” or “kWh”. The following sentence is correct, “A 250W panel can produce up to 1kWh of energy a day.” not the version in the article.