{"id":20898,"date":"2018-04-16T11:25:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T05:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenworldinvestor.com\/?p=20898"},"modified":"2018-04-16T11:25:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T05:55:31","slug":"why-is-bangladesh-buying-solar-power-from-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/2018\/04\/16\/why-is-bangladesh-buying-solar-power-from-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Bangladesh Buying Solar Power from India?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Solar Energy in Bangladesh<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Given the success stories of renewable energy worldwide, Bangladesh is also planning to go big on solar! The country has taken few big steps in this regard over the last few years. Here are few highlights of solar energy in Bangladesh<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

i) Setting up of SHS –\u00a0Solar Home System program<\/em><\/p>\n

ii) Setting up of\u00a0BEZA – Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority<\/em><\/p>\n

iii) Signing PPAs\u00a0for solar\u00a0power generation<\/em><\/p>\n

iv) Expressing interest in buying solar power from neighboring countries like India.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bangladesh aims at making renewable energy account for about 10% of the total power generation capacity by 2021<\/strong> – somewhere around 2400MW power. Given the present state of affairs, it looks like most of it would come from solar energy.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/a><\/p>\n

The country runs a Solar Home System (SHS) program<\/strong>, which has granted electricity from rooftop\u00a0solar to a large number of people living in off-grid locations, where access to power was impossible.\u00a0However, this is equal to just 250 MW of solar installations, which means the country still has a long way to go to achieve its renewable energy goal.\u00a0At present, the on-grid solar power generation capacity in Bangladesh<\/strong>\u00a0stands at 15MW.\u00a0 SkyPower had announced building 2 GW of utility-scale solar energy in Bangladesh<\/strong> in 2015, with no further updates till date. Last year, BEZA or Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority<\/strong> signed an agreement with POWERCHINA to set up a 1 GW solar power park in the country. BEZA has plans of setting up a 100o MW solar power zone. The country is heavily dependent upon thermal power for its electricity needs.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh had signed PPAs for solar\u00a0power generation amounting to 1070MW. However, the companies were not able to honor their commitments. Lack of land and proper government incentives<\/em><\/strong> have curtailed solar development in Bangladesh. The country can also look at developing floating solar power projects<\/strong><\/a>, which are proving to be a huge success in land-locked countries worldwide. In order to promote solar power in the country, the World Bank approved $55 million funds for rural areas of Bangladesh not connected with the grid. A Norwegian company Scatec Solar has also announced setting\u00a0up an 800 MW solar power project in Bangladesh. Recently, Bangladesh has expressed an interest in buying 2000 MW of solar power from India<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

India is planning to provide\u00a0electricity from large solar parks being set up in Gujarat and Rajasthan. India is keen on strengthening its energy linkages with Bangladesh given its strategic location and is also interested in constructing a solar power plant where the entire power generated could be supplied to Bangladesh.\u00a0Though the move is being regarded as a good step in boosting\u00a0cross-border energy trade, the country should look at constructing plants in the eastern states to reduce power losses during transmission. Prime Minister Modi has huge plans to support neighborhood trade with his “South Asia-focused neighborhood-first policy<\/strong>” and this deal will be a big step in this direction. PM Modi is focusing on energy security as an important agenda of India-Bangladesh ties and is looking\u00a0at adding 500MW transmission\u00a0under an existing link.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Solar Energy in Bangladesh Given the success stories of renewable energy worldwide, Bangladesh is also planning to go big on solar! The country has taken few [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[593,594,686,4800,5010,5207,6021],"class_list":["post-20898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar-renewable-energy-greeninvest","tag-bangladesh-economic-zones-authority","tag-bangladesh-to-buy-2000-mw-of-solar-power-from-india","tag-beza","tag-solar-energy-in-bangladesh","tag-solar-power-generation-capacity-in-bangladesh","tag-south-asia-focused-neighborhood-first-policy","tag-why-is-bangladesh-buying-solar-power-from-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iiec-india.org\/greenworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}