Topu Roy’s family did not have electricity until about 2005 when his parents set up a solar power system at their home in Dinajpur, northern Bangladesh, to run lights and fans.
Grid power finally reached Roy’s village in 2020 under a government programme to electrify the whole country by 2021, enabling residents to use a range of electric appliances for the first time. Hikes in fuel prices globally have destabilised energy policy in Bangladesh, which imports about a quarter of its natural gas supply, sparking calls for a more diversified energy mix including a greater focus on renewables, especially solar.
The recent rise in fossil fuel prices means industry can now save a lot of money by adopting solar power, said Ziaur Rahman Khan, another Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professor. The report offers key policy pointers, such as the “very real opportunities” of rooftop solar installations, said Farseem Mannan Mohammedy, director of the university’s Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development.
According to a 2020 Irena report, there were 137,000 jobs in Bangladesh’s solar sector, mostly concentrated in solar home systems including 10,000 jobs in solar-module assembly. The plant, which has been supplying power to the grid since last November, is one of eight large-scale solar plants operating in Bangladesh, which have combined capacity of about 230MW.