Solar Energy Prospects in Bangladesh: Target and Current Status

Abstract

Owing to the favorable geographical location, Bangladesh captures a good amount of solar radiation per day. The proper utilization of this solar energy may reduce the country’s energy demand to a great extent. Bangladesh government has already made a master plan to utilize the abundant solar energy in different ways with a capacity development target of 600 MW by the end of 2021. Until 2018 a total capacity of 220 MW of solar power could be achieved by installing 6.9 million solar home systems (SHSs). On the other way, rooftop solar and solar mini-grid projects facilitated the capacity of 3.07 MW and 5 MW, respectively. A capacity of 32 MW could also be touched by solar irrigation projects with more than 1300 pumps for serving country’s rural people, and solar-diesel hybrid solution program (by installing 138 small power stations) has been supporting the telecom operators. Bangladesh power development board (BPDB), and Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL) have been promoting numerous research-development solar projects to many governments and private universities to build sustainable energy equipped country.