Our entire way of life and
all of our economic projections relies on more energy. Howbeit, the world is
now facing most serious challenge in energy supply which could be a more
devastating crisis than world wars. Global energy depletion has already begun,
although few countries have realized it. The peak energy affects the future of
the entire global economy. Presently the energy producing resources like fossil
fuel, gas, coal, and uranium has placed in peak position. It is predicted that
those non-renewable energy is going to be declined position in every place of
the earth.
Dominant consumption of non-renewable
energy for electricity is leading to Green House Gasses (GHG) emission into the
atmosphere. According to the International Energy Agency (2011), approximately 901
grammes of CO2 or equivalent are released per kilowatt hour of electricity that
generated from coal. Presumably, global urban populations are principle
responsible for GHG emissions due to the consumption of bulk amount of energy
for the aristocratic lifestyle. While on the contrary, Renewable World stated
that still 1.3 billion people in the world still live without access to
electricity and 2.7 billion people have no access to clean cooking facilities. Admittedly,
energy crisis will happen in future and then urban inhabitants will be more sufferer
compare to rural people. In this situation, global economic wheel may be
plummeted and thus leading to global inevitable poverty. Indeed, a concerning
era has already arise in front of the global leaders to make them busy thinking
alternatively about how to overcome this energy crisis?
At present, what is the overview
of Bangladesh’s energy situation? Currently, around 43% population belongs to electricity
facilities with per capita consumption of 140 kilowatt hour. The electricity
consumption rate has increased gradually due to the demand of overwhelmed
growing population. Reported by the country power system Master Plan 2010, the
forecasted demand would be 19,000 megawatt by the year 2021 and 34,000 megawatt
by 2030. Till now majority of our energy come from non-renewable sources which are
facing challenges in order to growing energy demand for mostly electricity
generation. Presently, Bangladesh has 20.5 TFC recoverable natural gas reserve
and 420 million tones of coal reserve. Noticeable gas fields are already facing
multifaceted crisis for gas supply for electricity generation. For example,
Sangu gas field has reduced the supply of gas from a well. In addition, day by
day oil prices have increased in the global market schemes which lead to raise
prices per unit cost of electricity.
Surprisingly, the capital
city of Dhaka itself consumes almost 41.22% of the total generated electricity
while the demand of electricity is approximately 12000 megawatt and only 5493 megawatt
is on pipeline. Stated by DESA, the demand for power in Dhaka city has
increased by around 10% a year. As the supply is not adequate to meet the
demand in the city, so either we have to adopt it or think alternative path way
to solve the power crisis. If we consider Thailand, we can see that almost 28%
electricity comes from the renewable sources. Bangladesh also has plenty of
renewable energy sources to innovate and mainstreaming it to the main grid.
In Dhaka city we have not
enough wind speed for windmill, neither enough River current for hydroelectric power
plant nor even any suitable peri-urban places for nuclear power station
installation. Nuclear power plant might be a suitable option for bulk amount of
power generation and also it has no carbon emission but it is supposed to be risky
in terms of earthquake frequency. Surprisingly, Dhaka is situated in the solar
radiation receiving zone on the earth with almost 335 sunny days a year. Hence,
solar photovoltaic energy generation is the best option for Dhaka city to face
the present energy crisis.
According to CDMP’s Urban
Risk Reduction Specialists, there are 3,26,000 (appx.) buildings in Dhaka City.
If we consider introducing a 5m2 solar panel for each building, it might
produce about 222 megawatt (5*136W*326000) electricity. Another expert from the
same domain said that, we have almost 20000 shopping malls in Dhaka city and where
we could introduce renewable energy for electricity generation. Furthermore,
the growing real estate companies could also use environment favorable
architectural design like Council Building-2 (Solar energy capturing building) in
Melbourne where produce a substantial amount of electricity locally for every
building. Apart from this, solar technology also reduce GHG emission rate by absorbing
around 20% solar radiations that might balance the inner city heat. Cutting
down of existing load shading, long term health and financial benefits are also
might be ensured and even people could get installation cost back within three
years.
From renewable energy
sources, Bangladesh government has set a target to meet 5% by the year 2015 and
10% by 2020 of total power demand (RENDEV). However, our government has already
been taken some effective initiative for enhancing efficiency of electricity
through energy saving distribution within urban communities. Bangladesh has an
extensive renewable energy policy. Few governmental offices, institutions and
common places are now being implemented solar power installation for the
purpose of alternative power generation.
Energy is one o f the most
important ingredients required to alleviate poverty, realize socio-economic and
human development. Energy returned on energy invested, banning of profligate
users, increase people awareness, policy implementation, generation of
individual or household level options, community or private sector initiative
along with investment, zero interest bank loans for renewable energy and
enforcement of law and order situation are required to overcome the present
condition. Furthermore, we need feasibility study of those technologies aiming to
adopt suitable technology for electricity production from renewable resources. For
an instance close your eyes and think, what will be the situation without or
insufficient electricity supply of Dhaka? Completely become dead city!
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