The power ministry Thursday held a meeting with the stakeholders to review the draft Renewable Energy Policy and expedite its adoption to tap the potentials of generating electricity from renewable energy resources.
The meeting headed by power secretary Dr M Fouzul Kabir Khan discussed the issues of renewable energy potencies to mitigate the nagging electricity crisis throughout the country, said a senior power ministry official.
Stakeholders working with renewable energy resources in Bangladesh including Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL), Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), Grameen Shakti, Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) and Rural Electrification Board (REB) provided their comments on the draft policy during the meeting.
An inter-ministerial meeting would also be arranged soon to finalise the draft renewable energy policy before placing it to the council of advisers for final approval, said the ministry official.
The power ministry recently took the initiative to adopt the country's first-ever Renewable Energy Policy against the backdrop of country-wide shortfall in electricity.
Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed this month launched a national campaign to promote the use of renewable energy and urged all concerned for efficient use of energy to cope with the mounting electricity demand across the country.
Power ministry officials said the Power Cell, under the ministry of power, energy and mineral resources, has drafted the renewable energy policy and a guideline to boost electricity generation from renewable energy sources.
Currently, the country's total power generation is hovering around 3,500 MW against the estimated demand for over 5,000 MW every day.
Renewable energy contributes around 15 MW, less than 1.0 per cent of the total electricity generation.
Several public, private and non-government organisations installed a good number of renewable energy units like solar, wind, bio-gas with financial assistance from donor agencies to ease electricity crisis.
The proposed renewable energy policy will help the smooth growth and expansion of their renewable energy projects, Thursday's meeting pointed out.
The main objectives of the proposed renewable energy policy is to explore opportunities for community based renewable energy options for different applications and its multipurpose use in off-grid areas of Bangladesh.
Currently, LGED has a number of solar power system under which it arranged production of electricity for the households and commercial shops of over 150 families including those in the tribal areas and coastal belts.
The LGED also installed some ten-wind energy project, one micro hydropower project and over 1,000 biogas projects across the country, power ministry official said.
The REB has installed solar power system for over 800 consumers of two riverine islands of Narshingdi.
The IDCOL has already installed over 180,000 solar home systems through its partner organizations.
It has targeted to finance 900,000 solar home systems by year 2012 with assistance from World Bank, Global Environment Facility, Asian Development Bank, KFW and GTZ.
Grameen Shakti has installed over 77,000 solar power system and 500 biogas plants for over 700,000 people of different coastal areas.
