Developing alternative sources of power
Friday, 12 September 2008
Khademul Islam
A non-traditional source of energy of much potential in the rural areas of Bangladesh is solar power. It is very well-suited for rural Bangladesh because it does not involve expending so much resources on wires, poles and other equipment. Users need to make only a one-time investment in solar panels that last decades with good maintenance. They do not have to pay bills and are not harassed by regular periods of power shut-offs of the type suffered presently by the Rural Electrification Board (REB) users. Solar power has proved to be efficient in all assessments made so far. Good and almost continuous sunshine is guaranteed round the year in Bangladesh. Solar energy is very clean and very environment-friendly, unlike coal or fuel oil.
Government patronage of solar power schemes can speed up the use of solar electricity in the rural areas. It can take the form of loans distributed by the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) to buy the solar panels on easy terms and conditions, adequate publicities in the mass media to make people aware of the benefits of solar power, tax-exempted import of the solar panels so that these can be marketed substantially cheaper and extending other facilities to the private developers of solar power.
It is high time to decrease dependence on processes such as the burning of petroleum or coal to produce power. Such processes are relatively expensive, wasteful and create external dependency. On the other hand, the alternative forms of energy such as solar power, biogas, wind energy and wave energy are very environment-friendly and should be particularly suitable for Bangladesh.
Especially, the conceived project to produce biodiesel from the fruits of the jatrofa plants needs to be pushed hard. It was reported recently that government was planning to plant jatrofa plants in some reserved areas to raise a crop for meeting the total annual needs of diesel. But no more has been heard about this project since, whereas India and some other countries are known to be meeting substantial quantities of their fuel needs from biodiesel.
Government should adopt appropriate policies with no loss of time to popularise the uses of these alternative forms of energy extensively. Even in a developed country like Britain, non-conventional sources of energy are substantially meeting the national needs of energy. Bangladesh is going through a particularly difficult period in producing enough power conventionally to match demand. While it ought not to slacken in any way its drive to set up more conventional power plants in the short and medium terms, the longer term plans need to include development of these non-conventional sources of power in a complimentary manner with the conventional sources.
Power from the national grid will not be available for supplying to many remote parts of Bangladesh in the near future as the needed infrastructures for doing this are considered to be prohibitive in terms of costs. For these areas and their huge number of people, the only viable option seems to be off-grid power from non-conventional sources.
A non-traditional source of energy of much potential in the rural areas of Bangladesh is solar power. It is very well-suited for rural Bangladesh because it does not involve expending so much resources on wires, poles and other equipment. Users need to make only a one-time investment in solar panels that last decades with good maintenance. They do not have to pay bills and are not harassed by regular periods of power shut-offs of the type suffered presently by the Rural Electrification Board (REB) users. Solar power has proved to be efficient in all assessments made so far. Good and almost continuous sunshine is guaranteed round the year in Bangladesh. Solar energy is very clean and very environment-friendly, unlike coal or fuel oil.
Government patronage of solar power schemes can speed up the use of solar electricity in the rural areas. It can take the form of loans distributed by the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) to buy the solar panels on easy terms and conditions, adequate publicities in the mass media to make people aware of the benefits of solar power, tax-exempted import of the solar panels so that these can be marketed substantially cheaper and extending other facilities to the private developers of solar power.
It is high time to decrease dependence on processes such as the burning of petroleum or coal to produce power. Such processes are relatively expensive, wasteful and create external dependency. On the other hand, the alternative forms of energy such as solar power, biogas, wind energy and wave energy are very environment-friendly and should be particularly suitable for Bangladesh.
Especially, the conceived project to produce biodiesel from the fruits of the jatrofa plants needs to be pushed hard. It was reported recently that government was planning to plant jatrofa plants in some reserved areas to raise a crop for meeting the total annual needs of diesel. But no more has been heard about this project since, whereas India and some other countries are known to be meeting substantial quantities of their fuel needs from biodiesel.
Government should adopt appropriate policies with no loss of time to popularise the uses of these alternative forms of energy extensively. Even in a developed country like Britain, non-conventional sources of energy are substantially meeting the national needs of energy. Bangladesh is going through a particularly difficult period in producing enough power conventionally to match demand. While it ought not to slacken in any way its drive to set up more conventional power plants in the short and medium terms, the longer term plans need to include development of these non-conventional sources of power in a complimentary manner with the conventional sources.
Power from the national grid will not be available for supplying to many remote parts of Bangladesh in the near future as the needed infrastructures for doing this are considered to be prohibitive in terms of costs. For these areas and their huge number of people, the only viable option seems to be off-grid power from non-conventional sources.