Write a report on ‘Energy Policies in Bangladesh.

Introduction
Bangladesh is facing tremendous pressure to tackle its growing energy demand. Although even
2 decades ago, the situation was completely different as the thought was that huge reserve of
natural gas would lead to boost the economic activity resulting in prosperity and a vibrant
economy. Since it is now obvious that, gas reserve is going to be finished very soon,
Bangladesh is working to diversify its energy consumption pattern in order to meet the
continuous increase in demand for energy.
Gas sector overview
Natural gas has been the most important source of energy consumption in Bangladesh since
independence. There are as many as 26 gas reserve location in Bangladesh. Since Bangladesh
lacks technical efficiency to conduct gas exploration, it has to depend on the foreign companies
for this. At present 4 international oil companies are associated with gas production in
Bangladesh. But the alarming thing is that on other big reserve has been invented in recent
times to give assurance for future demand. The consumption pattern for gas is shown in the
graph below:

Sector wise use of gas in Bangladesh: (Energy and Mineral Division)

So from the graph we see that the major portion of the gas production is going to power sector
to produce electricity. Another significant amount is being consumed by the households which
is very inefficient. Currently the demand for gas per day is approximately 2500 mmcf while
the production is about 2000 mmcf (IAEA, 2012). So there is a huge gap between supply and
production while the gap is increasing every day.

Power sector overview

A steady increase in the power and energy supply is the main prerequisite for the development
of any country. As an emerging economy Bangladesh is eying to enter into the list of top 20
biggest economy nation by 2040. So the authority of Bangladesh is trying to bring all the
households under electricity supply by 2021 but the current pace shows us that the goal may
not be achieved for many obstacles. The growing demand of electricity for garments,
manufacturing and other industries could not be met because of limited electricity production.
If we look at the power sector of Bangladesh at a glance in the table below, we see that from
2009 to 2017, there is significant improvement in the power sector. Number of power plants
has increased significantly but government failed to open any big sustainable long-term power
generating plant till now. The satisfactory achievement is that the authority has become
successful to increase the number of consumers and electricity generation significantly.

If we look at the power generation policy of the Bangladesh, we see in 2020 the government
is planning to generate approximately 2300 megawatt while the target for 2041 is 60000
megawatt which is quite ambitious. But without steady growth iit is not possible to maintain
the economic growth to upgrade into a middle-income country.

Fuel price and impact on the economy:

Global oil market price significantly impact the economy of Bangladesh before the recession
of 2008, the oil price in the international market had been rising significantly which put
tremendous pressure on the economy of Bangladesh and kept influence in rising inflation. But
currently the low level of price is helping Bangladesh government very much. Few years back,
the government had to put a huge subsidy on petroleum import to keep the inflation in check.
But now the government has become able to divert this amount of money in other sectors. It
has taken the policy of not reducing the oil price in the domestic market in fear of various
consequences although the international price is way lower than the local market price.
Solar energy
Solar energy is one of the biggest source of renewable energy. In recent years it has become
very popular in the rural areas of Bangladesh where the power grid line has not reached till
now. So the government is providing initiatives to various NGOs to set up soar panels in the
households. This policy has helped from both supply and demand side together. Multiple
incentives helped to increase the demand for solar panels, specially the lower-class people
have become able to buy it now. On the other hand, the supply side has also experienced a
boost in this business. According to a report of The Daily Star (june12,2017) jobs in the solar
sector has seen 10% rise every year. Till now, more than 4 million solar home system (SHS)
has been set up in the entire country. One of the reputed NGO- Grameen Shakti is working on
the from the very beginning:

Source: cleantechnica.com
Policy scenarios:
As the demand for energy is rising very rapidly, the government is try to implement some
policies to diversify the energy consumption pattern. The 1996 energy policy highlighted to
the participation of the private industries in the energy sector. The Bangladesh energy
regulatory commission act, 2003, paved the way for foreign investment with the state
investment to boost the energy sector. The Energy Conservation Act, 2009 was drafted to
support the private investment. To maintain a stable supply of energy, the Power System
Master Plan 2010 was brought to the table to improve infrastructural development. Moreover,
these following steps should get priority to improve the current situation:
➢ Increasing the electricity production to decrease the supply and demand gap in a
systematic way.
➢ Giving emphasize on public-private partnership to generate more power.
➢ Exploring the probability to import electricity from all the neighboring countries.
➢ Saving electricity and other energy sources by controlling the demand side.
➢ Diversifying the use of fuel in various industries and power plants to reduce pressure
on any single energy source.
➢ Taking efficient steps to reduce system loss.
➢ Increasing activities to explore new oil, gas, coal fields.