At a webinar, they said that the government had been focusing on promoting clean energy rather than green energy sources to achieve goal of generating 40 per cent of overall power using renewable energy sources by 2040. They also discussed financing, cost effectiveness, commercial viability and sustainability of renewable energy at the webinar on misconceptions about renewable energy in Bangladesh. South Asian Network on Economic Modeling arranged the webinar. SANEM research director Saima Haque Bidisha delivered the welcome speech.

She said, ‘Considering the rising global warming and climate change impact, reducing fossil fuel energy consumption is a concern for all across the world.’ ‘According to the Paris Climate Agreement, countries, including Bangladesh, committed to reduce consumption of fossil fuel energy and promote green energy,’ she said. ‘Policy support and budget support are required for facing the waste and storage management crises in terms of renewable energy capacity development,’ she said. ‘Government may offer several incentives or tax facilities to encourage private sectors to generate green energy,’ she added.

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis energy finance analyst Shafiqul Alam, as a panel discussant, said, ‘Our installed capacity of renewable power energy is about 3.5 per cent and achieving the target of 40 per cent is challenging.’ ‘According to the Power System Master Plan 2016, in terms of installed capacity, 40 per cent is equivalent to 24,000 megawatts while the overall power generation capacity target was set to about 60,883 megawatts by 2040,’ he said. We should work based on an annual work plan targeting a long-term work plan to easily identify the challenges to achieve the long-term goal, he said. Combinations of utilisation options should be adopted like land-based and rooftop solar projects or offshore wind projects to attain the green power generation target, he said.

In terms of capacity building, he said, ‘We should identify the challenges and also adopt a policy for installing rooftop solar panels at industries and universities for producing green energy.’ ‘We also set a goal of 20MW at area bases annually,’ he said. Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology petroleum and mineral resources engineering department professor Mohammad Tamim said, ‘In the last 14 years, we have achieved the capacity to generate 1,000MW power from renewable energy sources.’ ‘Along with the policy crisis, land, networking and feeding tariffs are the common barrier for boosting the green power capacity of the country,’ he said. ‘Transferring green power through the national grid system is also challenging which requires more financing support for distribution of power,’ he said. ‘The government may draft a roadmap for five years to generate about 6,000MW power from renewable energy sources which may help to achieve the long-term vision,’ he said.

News Link: Waste mgmt, land scarcity major challenges: experts