Sustainable energy for Dhaka City
Our entire way of life and all our economic activities rely on energy -- in fact on more of it. However, the world is now facing most serious challenges in energy supply which can be a more devastating crisis than the world wars wrought. Global energy depletion has already begun, although few countries realise it. Presently the energy producing resources like fossil fuel, gas, coal, and uranium have reached their peak position. It is predicted that those non-renewable energy sources are going to decline from that position in every location of the earth sooner than later. Dominant consumption of non-renewable fuels for electricity production is leading to increased Green House Gases (GHG) emission into the atmosphere. According to the International Energy Agency (2011), approximately 901 grammes of CO2 or equivalent is released per kilowatt hour of electricity generated by burning coal. Presumably, global urban populations are mainly responsible for GHG emissions due to their consumption of bulk amount of energy for the mechanical lifestyle. While, on the contrary, still 1.3 billion people in the world live without access to electricity and 2.7 billion have no access to clean cooking facilities. Admittedly, energy crisis will happen in future and then urban inhabitants will suffer more compared to rural people. In this situation, global economic wheel may experience a screeching brake leading to inevitable poverty. Indeed, an era of concern has already arrived for the global leaders to think how to overcome this energy crisis? Now, what is the overview of Bangladesh's energy situation? Currently, around 43% of its population has access to electricity facilities with per capita consumption of 140 kilowatt hour. The electricity consumption rate has increased gradually due to the rapidly growing population. According to the 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 much of our energy comes from non-renewable sources which are facing challenges of being exhausted. Presently, Bangladesh has 20.5 TFC recoverable natural gas reserve and 420 million tonnes of coal reserve. Noticeable, gas fields are already facing crisis of supply for electricity generation. For example, Sangu gas field has reduced the supply from a well. Typical of a developing country, the capital city of Dhaka itself consumes almost 41.22% of the total generated electricity while the demand for electricity is approximately 12,000 megawatt and only 5,493 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, so we have to adopt alternative way to solve the crisis. If we consider Thailand, we can see that almost 28% of the electricity demand is met from renewable sources. Bangladesh also has plenty of renewable energy sources -- for innovating and mainstreaming that to the 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, it seems solar photovoltaic energy generation is the best option for Dhaka city to face the present energy crisis. According to 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 electricity. Another opinion from the same domain says that, we have almost 20,000 shopping malls in Dhaka city where we can introduce renewable energy for electricity generation. Furthermore, the growing real estate companies could also use environment friendly architectural design like Council Building-2 (solar energy capturing building) in Melbourne where a substantial amount of electricity is locally produced for every building. Apart from this, solar technology also can reduce GHG emission rate by absorbing around 20% of solar radiations that might balance the inner city heat. 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. However, the government has already taken some effective initiatives for enhancing efficiency of electricity use through energy saving bulbs distribution among urban communities. Some government offices, institutions and also other places are now installing solar panels for the purpose of alternative power generation. Energy is one of the most important ingredients required to alleviate poverty and realise socio-economic development. An energy returned on energy invested policy, banning of profligate uses, increased people awareness, generation on individual or household level, community or private sector initiative along with investment, zero interest bank loans for renewable energy options and enforcement of law on energy regulation are required to overcome the present and impending power crisis. We need feasibility study on all technologies aiming at electricity production from renewable resources. The need is desperate.
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