Page 11 - AsiaElec Week 32 2021
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Bangladesh approves plans for 100-MW, state-owned solar plant
BANGLADESH
THE Bangladeshi government has finalised plans to build a 100-MW, state-owned solar plant in Jamalpur, the largest yet in the country.
The Sheikh Hasina Solar Park is planned to serve local needs and supply surplus power to the national grid.
The project is considered an important step in Bangladesh’s efforts to source 10% of its power demand from renewable sources;Bangladesh has already developed an off grid solar programme that has provided electricity to over 20 million people. However, utility-scale solar is still in its infancy.
The project, due to be named after the pres- ent Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, encoun- tered naming problems this week as the Prime Minister objected to her name being used, and suggested the project be named Solar Park Madargan, after the name of the local district.
The country is well behind on renewa- ble energy sourcing, owing to a combination of issues across land, capital and access to technology.
The government has also been slow to focus on utility-scale solar, concentrating instead on natural gas, which accounts for over 50 percent of its energy mix currently. The country is also a net oil importer.
After failing to achieve the 10% renewable target by 2020, the state has fixed 2025 as the new
target date for the same.
State-owned Rural Power Company has been
picked to execute the project, with the National Economic Council expected to provide formal approval soon. The total cost of the project is esti- mated at BDT15.11bn ($149mn), with funding coming from the Exim Bank of India as a loan, the government said.
To get around the shortage of land for such a project, the Jamalpur plant will be built on a land close to the Jamuna river that is non-agricultural. A 6.5 km embankment will also be built to pro- tect the plant from flooding.
In January, Bangladesh’s Spectra Solar Park Ltd opened a 35-MW solar project funded by Asian Development Bank (ADB), Germany’s KfW and the Canadian Climate Fund for the Pri- vate Sector in Asia as part of government efforts to meet the 10% green target.
The ADB is to provide a $17.7mn loan pack- age to Spectra Solar Park to finance the pro- ject and make it the first private-sector solar plant funded by multilateral institutions in Bangladesh.
The government will purchase the solar elec- tricity generated by the plant for 20 years at a rate of BDT11.12 ($0.13) per kWh.
Bangladesh currently produces 766.51MW from renewable sources, accounting for 3.3% of the total electricity produced.
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