Despite substantial jump in generation of electricity from various renewable sources including rooftopprojects in the recent years, Bangladesh is yet to go a long way to meet its aspired 40 percent greenenergy production target by 2041.
Till date, the level of generating electricity from green sources is only 77 kWH, which is 3 percent of thetarget, though a total of 1,703 firms and factories have installed rooftop solar systems under netmetering model since 2018 to minimise energy costs and reduce carbon emission.But there is a growing interest among the industry owners, small to large scales, of installing solarproject at the rooftop of their factories, especially garments, textiles and jute mills considering their costeffectiveness.
The cost of electricity generated from rooftop solar system is about 40 percent less than that from
national grid as it currently costs Tk 5.5-6.0 each kWH (kilowatt/hour) against above Tk 9.0 a unit of grid
power. Besides consuming by its own, rooftop solar project owners can sell surplus electricity to the
national power grid under the net-metering system.
More industry owners are now showing interests for installing rooftop solar projects considering their
price competitiveness and profitability in face of the reality as they feel the pinch of constantly rising
tariff of grid power.
In last three consecutive months, the government in executive orders raised retail power tariffs by
around 5.0 per cent while natural gas tariffs for industries and power plants also soared as high as
178.88 per cent from February.
Electricity and natural gas tariffs are set to witness a further hike soon as the government has planned
not to provide subsidy in power and energy sectors.
To get rooftop solar projects in their factories, industry owners are also getting up to 80-per cent fiscal
support from local lenders like Infrastructure Development Company Limited (Idcol) and development
partners on easy terms. The IDCOL gets funds from the World Bank and German’s KfW Development
Bank to support local business entrepreneurs to build rooftop solar projects.
Now the question arises, despite so much potential, why the growth of power generation from this
natural source is not up to the level?
An expert an analyst in the field of renewable energy, Dipal C. Barua, while talking to this
correspondent, said It is high time to explore new horizons of renewable energy to scale up countries'
electricity production and to ensure a greener environment with energy security for our future
generation of Bangladesh.
He said around 498 railway stations and edges of approx. 3600 km long rail lines in Bangladesh, will be
significant for Solar Installation having the potential of generating around 1000 MW. Approximately
4,621 Garments Factories are currently in operation. They may take the Rooftop Solar option gradually.
Installing Solar Rooftop systems in Garments, Pharmaceutical, Footwear, and other factorieswill help
reduce their total costs and burden of foreign exchange, improve and increase the quantity of Garments
exports and will earn more foreign currency and will subsequently help to build up the country’s Foreign
Currency Reserve.