Bangladesh Heads Toward Renewable Energy

One of our core tasks here at 2Greenenergy is bringing expertise to the analysis of high-level issues in renewable energy. A few months ago, the government of Bangladesh contacted us with an extremely open-ended request: come study our resources — both physical and economic, and make a comprehensive set of pragmatic recommendations.

To that end, we’ve brought in our partners at SunBD, a global consultancy with numerous projects under their belts in Asia and Europe, as well as North and South America. As always, we’re recommending a two-part attack on the challenge:

Part One is an analysis of the supply and demand without renewables. Coal plants, e.g., run for about 40 years before they need an extremely expensive overhaul. And there are issues other than age alone that affect longevity: what type of coal was burned, what types of pollution controls were put on top of them, etc. Retiring old, dying plants that are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain is an easy and painless decision. But to retire a newer plant requires that you don’t mind spending major bucks to turn off coal in favor of clean energy. Thus, Part One is understanding the entire calculus surrounding this idea: where will fossil fuels take Bangladesh given the current supply and predicted demand.

Phase Two takes off from there and analyzes Bangladesh’s renewable resources, and establishes a practical plan for phasing out fossil fuels in favor of wind, PV, CSP, geo, hydro, and biomass as quickly, but as cost-effectively as possible.

The project isn’t in the bag at this point, but discussions continue, and everyone’s hopeful.  We’ll keep you posted.