Going all out for enhancing solar power generation

While addressing the 2nd Dhaka Renewable Energy Financing Talk organised by Change Initiative at a venue in the city, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister, claimed that if the country's irrigation pumps can shift to solar power from fossil fuel, a total of 5,000 megawatts could be obtained from this source. This means the shift can help spare Bangladesh the use of fossil fuels to produce this amount of electricity. The gain obviously is manifold. It lessens dependence on imported fossil fuel and also saves the country from the attendant environmental pollution. Finally, the cost over a long period of time will prove much lower than that of fossil fuel. The production cost will be zero after the investment and benefit have reached the break-even point. Apart from some minor maintenance cost, there will hardly be any expenditure and this is what the benefits of renewable energy, more particularly solar power, are.
The Power Sector Master Plan (PSMP), 2016 emphasised dependence on fossil fuel on the premise that Bangladesh has constraints of open space for installation of solar panels. By that time the potential of solar power was assessed only at 2,690 MW. Contrary to this, the global power generation capacity has risen up to 60 per cent of the total since 2014. Thankfully, a revision of the energy policy has opted for the Integrated Energy and Power Master Plan (IEMP), 2023. Under this plan, installation of floating power plants has been considered the best option for overcoming the constraint of open space on land. There are 150,000 hectares of pond, 250,000 hectares of beels, haors and baors (swamps or marshy lands) apart from lakes and river pockets suitable for the purpose. If one-third of each pond is used for installation of solar panels and just 10 per cent of the marshy lands brought under the project of such installation, their outputs, according to a sustainable infrastructure specialist of Bangladesh origin now living in Australia, will be 15,000 MW and 25,000 MW respectively, bringing the total to 40,000 MW. Use of other water bodies can also provide for 20,000 MW, making the total 60,000 MW, enough for the country by 2050.
True, the specialist admits, the cost of installation of floating system is 25 per cent higher but the good news is that by 2020 it has come down and the rate of decrease is rapid. The cost of installation of solar system in 2015 was $135 per megawatt hour (MWh) only to drop to between $ 45 to $61.50 in 2020. Predictably, the expensive energy storage system for use at night is going to be 80 per cent cheaper by 2040. Extensive research on the solar system and other renewable energy sources worldwide is making it possible.
Bangladesh has bright sunshine for most of the year. Now that there is an alternative to space constraint on land, it has compelling reasons for converting its irrigation pumps as a test case. At the same time, the solar home system should be given a further boost in order to meet the growing electricity needs of villagers in particular. Following these, conversion of other fossil fuel-guzzling systems of power generation to solar system should gradually be effected in a systematic way.