Shamsul Huda Solar energy based power units are being installed in remote and off grid villages at a faster rate in Bangladesh than any other country in the world, sources said. "We regard Bangladesh as the leading country in the installation of solar home system (SHS) in the world," said a donor agency official. SHS are small units which villagers purchase availing instalment payment facilities from participatory organisations (PO) under Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL). A unit may include a solar panel to power a number of lamps, fans, television sets and computers in a village house. Aiming to provide power to the rural people who are not getting electricity from the national grid, the IDCOL's SHS is currently being implemented by the POs who receive soft loan facilities from IDCOL. Over the last decade IDCOL has installed 2.5 million SHS units which are more than the targeted number. IDCOL hopes to install six million SHS units by 2016. IDCOL CEO Mahmood Malik said, "Last month we installed 89 thousand SHS units and this is the fastest rate in any country of the world. We hope we would be able meet our target before 2016." He said a good number of countries are recognising IDCOL for their achievements in reaching renewable solar energy to power village houses. He said some countries have sought IDCOL's help to take electricity to their villages by SHS. IDCOL started their SHS operation in 2003 with soft loan facilities to the participatory organisations (PO) with financial support from World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Islamic Development (IDB), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), German aid organisations KFW, GIZ and other financial institutions. The SHS units are contributing to the development of the rural areas and people are getting power to light up their houses, market places and can charge batteries of their cell phone sets. Students and others are getting the opportunity to use information technology facilities. As everyone is concerned about global warming, use of renewable energy is getting top priority in the world. Bangladesh too is adopting green power to cut carbon emission, an official in the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), said. To cut carbon emission by installing renewable energy based power system, the BPDB has taken up a good number of solar grid projects and would install them soon, he said. The SHS are currently generating more than 82 megawatts of power in off grid areas across of the country.
Solar home system fast growing in BD
FE Team | Published: October 09, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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