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A study finds that Bangladesh has the potential to generate 30 GW wind power
Published : 07 Aug 2023, 02:57 AM
Growing global fears of rapid climate change fuelled by worsening carbon dioxide emissions because of the use of fossil fuels have led policymakers around the world to look for cleaner energy for quite some time.
But these have had merely any reflections on Bangladesh’s energy sector that can deliver a very tiny portion of clean power despite a capacity to generate 28,000 megawatt.
In September, the country’s capability to use renewable energy sources, such as solar, water, wind, biogas and biomass, to produce electricity was only 911 megawatts or 2.9 percent of the total, according to data from the Power Division.
On Aug 2, the 200 MW Teesta Solar Limited, the country’s largest solar power plant yet, was inaugurated.
And for a couple of months now, a wind farm with the capacity of generating an experimental 30 MW at Khurushkul in Cox’s Bazar has been feeding electricity to the national grid.
Overall, the country’s current clean power generation capacity is a little over 1,000 megawatts.
Experts said proper planning would have opened doors to more wind farms as there is proof of “potential” wind speeds in some coastal areas.
But it is yet to become a reality.
“About five to six years ago, it was believed that there was no prospect of wind power in Bangladesh,” said Shafiqul Alam, the Energy Finance Analyst for Bangladesh at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a research organisation based in the United States.
But research by the United States’ government agency National Renewable Energy Laboratory or NREL has found that the country has the potential to set up wind farms in the coastal areas and generate more power than its current total capacity, according to Shafiqul.
“There is enough wind speed in those locations, enough potential, about 5.7 metres per second.”
Dr M Shamsul Alam, an energy advisor at the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, said a lack of government goodwill has restricted the growth of wind power and the use of other renewables in the country.
“They (the government) didn’t even consider it (renewables) as a source of alternative energy. They keep some renewables projects for the sake of showing off,” he said.
He pointed out that renewable energy was supposed to meet 10 percent of the demand by 2020, but it did not even hit 1 percent.
“There was no plan to achieve the target.” Dr Shamsul said.
“There was no special progress in wind power so far because we didn’t have any feasibility study in hand. Now the work for assessing potential has come to an end,” said Nirod Chandra Mondal, a joint secretary at the Power Division currently working in the renewables energy sector.
“The government has moved to implement some projects after finding potential in some locations. We were told that there is no wind power potential. But now we can see there is, and there are good results,” Nirod said.
“Those involved in the conventional business never told us that renewables have potential. When we started solar projects, they said such efforts were pointless. But now, large solar power projects have the capacity to generate 461 MW. Yesterday, we generated 427 MW from the solar projects," Nirod said.
He said the government expects a similar future of wind farms.
According to a draft megaplan, the government wants 40 GW of renewable power capacity by 2030 and 60 GW by 2041.
The government believes that at least 47,000 MW can be generated from solar and wind among them.
By 2041, a total of 27,430 MW of electricity can be generated from solar power, while at least 20,000 MW could be produced from wind farms alone, the draft megaplan says.
THE OBSTACLES
India aims to make a 14 GW wind power station operational by 2030 while South Korea plans to establish a 1.6 GW wind farm in the same period.
China also prioritises wind energy over solar power while Pakistan has set a keen eye on it as well.
But Bangladesh has yet to make any headway in this mode of power generation. A local company, Nano Power, began working on a wind power project several years ago, but cut away from it midway after finding little success.
Kamal Hossain, CEO of Nano Power Bangladesh, said: “We constructed a wind turbine using local resources at Sonapara in Cox’s Bazar. But we stopped working on it after failing in the project.”
“The key challenge in wind power is that wind speeds are not as much as we expected. The next issue is that the turbine blades are usually made of fibre. But we could not get hold of fibre because we used local technology.”
Detailing how the project failed, Kamal said they found good results in initial studies.
“When we set up the turbine on Teknaf road, wind speeds were fast. But the failure was caused by the blades that were not revolving much.”
However, the company was thinking about working on generating wind power now again.
“We brought in alternators needed for a wind turbine from China. It generated a decent amount of power in low wind speeds as well.”
Kamal said they aimed to set up a turbine in Chattogram EPZ.
“We’ll get fast wind speeds there. But if we could use fibre blades, performance would have been much better.”
He mentioned that such fibre-made blades could be found in European countries but companies there would only accept full package purchases amid the dollar crisis.
So, the expenses will be too high.
“The cost is about Tk 600,000 in the country if we even seek 5 kW of power. But we have to spend Tk 1.5 million to bring it from [Europe], that’s almost 3 times costlier.”
Sheikh Munir Ahmed, a director of the power cell unit of the Power Division, also blamed the lack of sufficient wind speeds for Bangladesh lagging behind others in establishing wind power facilities.
“The wind in Bangladesh is sort of bad wind. For example, in Europe, wind speeds are steady and always blowing. But here, winds might disappear for 72 hours and then suddenly start blowing. That makes wind power generation a risky endeavour.”
“Secondly, big storms and cyclones occur every decade here and could break down [turbines]. Hence location, site, infrastructure -- these things were not coming together.”
“But now we can do it as we have studies on it. We could also consider offshore projects.”
Mentioning problems regarding “potential” sites with good wind speeds, Munir said: “For example, wind speeds in Sitakundu are fast. But the feasibility against the potential is low as we need to establish new roads. There are infrastructural issues.”
“We construct it at a particular elevation. We’re now establishing them at higher elevation. But that is a risk. We’ve constructed it at a height of 120 metres.”
“And dust is also a factor. The air is very clean and contains much less dust particles in those countries [Europe]. The amount of dust here is higher and it also contains moisture, so it’s sticky. So we can’t generate as much power as we are supposed to. But solar projects don’t have such issues, so those projects will be hugely successful.”
Munir also pointed out that investments would be lower if wind power is not commercially profitable. “We have to think about bringing in safe and secure investment. It can’t happen suddenly.”
30 GW FROM WIND ‘POSSIBLE’
The US study by NREL found that Bangladesh’s coastal region, especially Khulna’s Dacope, CHattogram’s Anwara and the estuary in Chandpur, have “huge potential” for wind farming.
The wind speed is more than 6 metres per second in these places.
The study said Bangladesh has around 20,000 kilometres of area where wind blows at 5.75-7.75 metres per second.
It means wind farms covering these areas can produce a total of 30 GW electricity, according to the report.
Joint Secretary Nirod said Bangladesh currently has 10 wind power projects, including four of the government, under way.
Three of the plants are under construction and the others are at the planning level.
Once the four government wind farms become fully operational, they will supply 180 MW to the national grid, according to him.
The country has not planned any offshore wind power station, but foreign firms are proposing such projects, he said.
Recently Denmark offered to invest $1.3 billion in a 500 MW offshore wind farm, the official said.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources said at a recent event that the government expects to produce 700-800 MW of wind power
