Impacts of renewable energy on the upcoming power crisis in Bangladesh

Energy is a vital building block and an indispensable element of modern civilization. It is recognized as a critical input parameter for economic development of a nation. Sustainable growth of a society, nowadays is analyzed from its gross energy consumption ­rate. This energy consumption rate is increasing everyday across the globe. Up to now, this tremendous energy demand has largely been met by fossil fuels like as coal, oil and natural gas. In 2005, the global energy demand was 11,429 million ton of oil equivalent (Mtoe), although a decade before that, it appeared to be only 7228 Mtoe [1]. From 1995 to 2011, oil, coal and natural gas were top of the global consumption, with having about 28.56% increased consumption of oil. Until 2020, in the absence of any break-through innovation, 90% of the global consumption will be supplied by fossil fuel, dominating all other resources [2]. Analysis from recent events shows that, from year 2011 to 2030, global consumption will rise by 36%, with an annual growth of about 16% [3]. In this total energy demand, share of fossil fuel will be about 80%, while nuclear and renewable energy may constitute the rest [4]. However, at current production rate, proven oil and natural gas resources will be exhausted within 54.2 years and 63.6 years, respectively [5]. In 1985, the total power generation capacity across the globe was 1945 GW, and by 2005 it had increased to 3878 GW [6]. Upcoming 20 years demand prediction suggest to install, about the same amount of power generation capacity that was set up over the entire twentieth century, resulting in a need of installing about 1000 MW power station per 3.5 days [7]. To add to the scenario, the comprehensive use of the fossil fuel results in exacerbated emission of greenhouse gases. Among others CO2, NOx and SO2 are becoming the issues of global warming and a treat towards the global ecosystem. Research exhibits, about 85% increase amount of CO2 emission will result in between 2000 to 2030 [5], and therefore, will accumulate about 40 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Renewable energy can be a resort of compensation, between ongoing energy crisis and environmental safety factors. At present renewable energy provides about 11% of total supply, and is estimated to account about 60% of the gross generation by 2070 [8].

Bangladesh is a developing nation, located in the northeastern part of South Asia between 2⁰⁰⁴՛ and 2⁶⁰³⁸՛ North Latitudes and 8⁸⁰⁰¹՛ and 9²⁰⁴¹՛ East Longitude. It is the world’s 8th most populous country with a population exceeding 162,951,560 people. In area, it is the 92nd largest country, spanning 147,570 square kilometers. Rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization concurrently triggers the peak energy consumption rate in the country. From 2000 to 2011, the power consumption rate increased form 12.7 Mtoe to 24.3 Mtoe, and is expected that power demand will increase to 185% by 2020 [9]. In between 1992 to 2011,the final energy consumption has been increased by 200% [5]. Power generation of the country is largely depends upon the fossil fuels, specially the natural gas. Natural gas had constituted about 81.4% of the total power generation in 2006 [10]. Imported furnace oil, coal, diesel and hydro power also constitute about 21.70%, 2.41% and 2.65% of the total generation, respectively [11]. Although the primary energy supplying source been increased with the passage of time, there is no growth in substantial alternative energy sources. At present there exists a tremendous demand to supply gap and it is increasing by more than 8% annually [12]. The current reserve of natural gas, which is about 11.77 trillion cubic feet (TCF) is going to be exhausted by 2019 [13]. This all predicts, the country is going to face severe energy crisis in the next few decades. According to the aim of the government of Bangladesh, to provide electrical energy to every last individual, more power generation and energy resources are required. Considering Coal to be the major fuel supply, the government has planned to generate about 2900MW in the next 5 years [14], in addition to this nuclear power plant is on the way to become operational. Due to limitation of coal, government also has focused on furnace-oil-based power plant. In addition to being limited, these all will render more CO2, NOx and SO2 emission since the scheme of fossil-fuel-plant has been considered. For a riverine country like Bangladesh, impact on ecosystem is a major issue to consider. Estimation shows, about 40% of the total CO2 emission in Bangladesh results from the power sector [15–16]. Thus, it becomes a challenge for the country to initiate plan that will give the ultimate solution to the ongoing power crisis and environmental issues. The integration of renewable energy technologies in the power sector would be, therefore, the ultimate solution to the energy crisis of Bangladesh, while maintaining the global approach of environmental protection. The government has considered this possibility and initiated plan targeting 5% of the total supply by 2015, and 20% by 2020 to be provided from renewable sources [17]. Moreover, plans have been initiated to generate 2,666 MW of energy from renewable energy sources by 2021. Among the renewable sources wind, solar, biomass and small scale hydropower energy might play major impact on the power sector. In this study, renewable energy sources and technologies in Bangladesh, and there contribution to the conventional energy sources will be studied. Future prospects of this technology will be considered too.

Prospects of renwebale energy utilzation in Bangladesh

Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources, which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat. Among those, biomass, wind, solar and small scale hydro-power energy are abundant in Bangladesh [18], though only solar, and biomass proves to be promising and effective [19]. Small scale hydro-power source can result to a potential of 500 MW [20], but due to flat terrain of the country it is generally of little interest. Moreover, wind energy utilization is also limited by insufficient ground data [21]. Bangladesh is still at nascent position to conduct the commercial scale production from renewable energy sources [22].

Biomass constitutes all kinds of organic matters, starting from the fuel wood to marine vegetation. It is the fourth largest renewable energy source worldwide and extensively used in rural areas for cooking and heating purposes. Biomass is a mixture of CH4(40–70%), CO2(30–60%) and other gases produced from organic matters in specialized bio-digesters [23].A agriculture based country like Bangladesh has various options like: agricultural residues, wood and wood wastes, animal dung, municipal solid wastes to generate electricity. About 46% of traditional biomass energy has been supplied by agricultural residues, total wood fuel consumption supplies 34%, animal dung provides 20%, and municipal solid wastes utilization varies year to year [24–26]. In Bangladesh, biomass energy provides potential electricity generation capacity of 160.93 TWh from agricultural residues in addition to 160.93 TWh and 29.91 TWh from reusable wastes and wood wastes, respectively [27]. Domestic biogas system, biogas gasification power plants, biogas power plants, are the technologies used to tap the potential of biogas energy in Bangladesh. Recently, Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCL) invested about 238,65 million BDT to uphold these technologies. Two widely used techniques in order to convert biomass into energy are gasification and direct combustion. Gas combustion technique involves conversion of biomass into medium/low-calorific gas, which is then used in combined cycle power generation plant. On the other hand, direct combustion involves producing hot glue gases by the oxidation of biomass with excess air, these gases in turns produces steam and used to generate electricity. Generally, electricity from combined cycle power plant are more efficient than that from a steam turbine. Energy extraction from biomass involves less amount of greenhouse gases and thus, more environment friendly.

The energy from sunlight reaching the earth can be used to generate electricity. This is termed to be the most fascinating renewable technology scheme throughout the world. Theoretically, available solar insolation on the earth can generate around 1700 TW of electric power, only 1% of which can resolve the world’s present energy demand [28]. Presently, a total of 559.8 MW of power is generated by renewable energy, of which a whopping 325.82 or 52.8% comes from solar power. Daily solar radiation in Bangladesh varies from 3 to 6 kWh/m2 [29]. Maximum amount of radiation is available on the month of March–April and minimum on December–January. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is being widely used for harnessing solar power. Array of PV unit cells are used to covert solar radiation to electrical energy. With ongoing researches, the unit prize of PV cell, manufacture and installing cost are decreasing with increased amount of efficiency [30–34]. Four major technologies can be considered for solar energy production: Solar Home System (SHS), Grid connected solar photovoltaic, Hybrid system, Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) system. SHS achieved remarkable success as off-grid generation at remote and rural areas for domestic used [35]. The system consists of 20–100 watt peaks PV arrays, a rechargeable battery and a PV controller. Size of the array and battery size determines the amount of electricity generation [36]. It is decentralized solar energy production scheme. Since the inception of IDCOL in 2003, about 3.8 million SHSs have been installed that generate a total of 135MW of electricity and benefit 13 million people. Moreover, a plan for installing 480,000 SHSs has been adopted. By using appropriate power conditioning sub-system that converts DC energy to AC energy that is synchronized to the grid, PV arrays are connected and synchronized to the grid, and thus paves the way to grid connected solar PV technology [37]. As a result, this technology doesn’t require any storage elements [38]. In Bangladesh, 48.5% of the total population have grid connected electricity supply [39]. Around 50,174 MW of technical potential can be achieved from the grid-connected PV system in Bangladesh [40]. 658 tons of greenhouse gas can be reduced by only 500 kW grid connected solar PV system [41,82]. In case of hybrid system, wind diesel generator-battery, wind-solar PV-diesel generator-battery, PV-diesel generator-battery can be coupled with decentralized renewable energy technologies to improve the total system reliability. CSP technology is capable of generating 100 MW of electricity annually per 2 km2 given area [41]. Among the major CSP technologies developed, parabolic trough and parabolic dish are found theoretically suitable for Bangladesh environment among all; parabolic trough, parabolic dish, solar tower and Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) [42]. The geographical location of Bangladesh is ideal for solar energy utilization [43]. Study shows 94% of the land area in Bangladesh have radiation sufficient for appropriate utilization based on available technology [44,48].

At present, one of the fastest growing renewable energy technology is wind energy [44]. Wind turbine is used for converting wind energy to electrical energy. It started at early 1980s. By 2016, total electrical energy installed capacity was 12229 MW and total installed wind energy was 1.9 MW. Wind energy potential in Bangladesh is over 20,000 MW, the wind speed being < 7 m/sec . Bangladesh has a costal belt of around 724 km along the Bay of Bengal consists of several islands (e.g. Saint Martin, Kutubdia, Swandip and Hatia), thus this technology is suitable to apply to the coastal area provided that adequate techno-economic evaluation is available [45]. Study conducted by Bangladesh Center for Advance Studies (BCAS), BMD and Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) shows that in different parts of the country wind speed varies from 2.96 to 4.54 m/s at a height of 25 m and 50 m [46]. Grid connected wind turbine technology is employed to connect the electricity generated from the wind turbines, to the central grid. Two types of grid connected wind turbine technology are used, first one to cater the local demand and surplus will be provided to the grid, and if local demand is higher than that of the generation, demand will be aided from the grid. The later one is the utility grid, where decentralized station are managed by the utilities similarly to the large power generating plants. The government has taken an initiative to set up three wind power plants in the country in the next two years, each one will have 500 MW capacity, for a total contribution of 150 MW wind power to the national electricity generation capacity.

In hydro-power plant, kinetic energy of falling or flowing water is converted to electrical energy. Hydropower plants can be divided into two categories: (1) Large hydropower plants (>10 MW), where a reservoir is used to provide flexible electricity output according to the demand and (2) Small hydropower plant (<10 MW), being less flexible to the load or demand fluctuation and are directly dependent on the water supply. Due to low cost, reliability and environmental benefits, small hydropower plant became popular throughout the world. In 2011, hydro energy constituted 25% of the total renewable energy, globally [47]. However, Bangladesh is afflicted to limited hydro power plant due to its geographical flatness [48]. At present, hydropower installed capacity of Bangladesh is 230 MW, and yearly 128 ktoe hydropower is being produced. Chittagong Hill Tracks (CHTs) area, and river basin of Matamuhuri and Sangu have been identified to be potential sites for hydropower. Research is going on to explore more potential sites throughout the country. Another possible renewable source can be tidal energy i.e. the energy obtained from the changing sea level. It is a form of inexhaustible green energy. Tidal Barrage, Tidal Fence and Tidal Turbine are three ways to extract energy. The tides in Sandwip demonstrate roughly 5 hours ‘in’ and 7 hours ‘out’ cycle. Traditional tidal technology would generate large quantities of energy during approximately 6 hours of this cycle. The installation of 75 kW turbines, generating 80% of full capacity for 23 hours/day might provide around 1,380 kWh/day using tidal surge. Thus, tidal energy may be used to develop local infrastructure as well as to conduct research activities [49]. Now, at 2019, Bangladesh stands with 230 MW capacity of hydropower, 167 MW of solar energy, 209 Mtoe of natural gas, 4 Million tones of oil and 2 MW of wind energy.

CONCLUSION

Study on power sector and the ongoing trend of power consumption for last few years indicate that Bangladesh is moving forward onto a tremendous power crisis. The excessive extraction of energy from limited sources like: coal, oil, gas will lead to a major rupture of the conventional power supply. Government of Bangladesh has launched some countermeasures, approaches to generate energy from renewable and nuclear source have been initiated. The environmental issues are also of importance, since it eventually plays impact on the ecosystem. The conventional energy generation technique involves vast amount of greenhouse gases that need to get reduced as largely as possible. Only renewable energy can compensate the existing power crisis while ensuring environmental safety. Again, renewable energy cannot be implanted overnight due to socio-economic and environmental consideration. Increase use of SHE, wide utilization of biomass in the urban and rural areas, may play sublime rule in these issues. Renewable energy comes up with disperse amount of schemes, each of which can be employed according to the budget, geological position, power expectation, and environmental safety. In order to maintain the crisis development and practice of the renewable energies need to be made consistent in government policies. Removing techno-economic and socio-economic barrier with rising bulk awareness to lean towards renewable energy, and thus accentuating the renewable energy generation may have auspicious impact on the awaiting power crisis.

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