Penetration of renewable power in Bangladesh

Abstract

Despite being a developing country in South Asia with a consistent ~7% GDP growth rate over the last two decades (2000–present), Bangladesh pledged to cut down its carbon emissions to 10% by 2020 from electricity generation in its first Renewable Energy Policy enunciated in 2014. Later in 2020, it heightened its ambition to green the entire power sector by 2050. It decided on the progressive adoption of renewable technologies to tackle climate change and ensure energy security. This research addresses the central question of discerning the optimum policies and priority areas required to guide Bangladesh through its sustainable energy infrastructure transformation and to support it towards its aspiration of becoming a developed country by 2041. Following an extensive literature review, the study generated a conceptual framework for a vector autoregressive nonlinear logistic energy transition model for Bangladesh, conforming to several transition factors and variables, such as past trends and future forecasts of energy demand, economic affordability, and other green transition factors pertinent to Bangladesh. As the first step, the primary assessment of the renewable potential (solar, wind, biomass, tidal, etc.) in Bangladesh found it quite challenging to meet the future demand only through local green resources at the current efficiency level and transition rate. The seasonal variability, cooling load variance and future changes among appliances will also play a vital role in the power demand scenarios. The novel "sociotechnical capacity for green power transition" model incorporates the mapping and estimation of available resources, reviews of economic growth patterns and forecasts, advancement of technology and global market trends, cross-border power sharing, trade policies and other influencing variables. The model shows the capacity of the country to afford the maximum feasible amount of green energy at a particular time in the future based on the projections of the influential variables. Initially, the model considered seventeen variables that may contribute to the future green transition in Bangladesh, but nine variables were used following the concept of collinearity and correlation. A logistic vector autoregression model was coded in MATLAB based on the past ten years' trend (since renewable power in Bangladesh took off after 2010) and simulated to forecast future transition pathways. The simulation results indicate the effects and extent of the impact of various influencing factors on the green transition scenarios. Based on the findings, this work suggested how the renewable share in the energy mix should be progressively augmented according to factors like the future escalation in financial affordability, land availability or the technical advancement of the suitable renewable systems' overall efficiency for the country. The simulation results graphically indicate the prioritisation across the variables should be foreign aid> energy storage price> system efficiency>direct green power import>carbon taxation>per capita income>renewable power budget>land acquisition of large solar plant>renewable electricity price. It was then examined through the homologous findings from a survey and an interview to verify the reality nexus. The work concluded with formulating recommendations and illustrated ideas based on the findings intended to support policymakers and energy managers. The policy recommendations included prioritising bringing more foreign aid and support in, maximising of use of industrial building rooftops, interconnecting household rooftop solar arrays to maximise aggregated power harvest saving agrarian lands, preferring applications like direct solar irrigation to opt out of expensive battery usage, facilitate direct solar charging station to recharge electric vehicles, etc. It also forecasted the high times for adopting mass energy storage upon becoming viable for base load supply. In that nexus, the work demonstrated how the policy mix changes could accelerate Bangladesh's transition 5-8 times faster compared to the ‘current business as usual' path. The suggestions and ideas will help policymakers better understand the dynamic interrelations between different transition factors to decide over and plan the wide-scale adoption modes and implementation of renewable energy systems according to the accessible resources and fiscal potential of different regions in Bangladesh.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Abubakr Bahaj: orcid.org/0000-0002-0043-6045

ORCID for Patrick James: orcid.org/0000-0002-2694-7054

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