Renewable Energy in Bangladesh: Current Status and Future Potentials

Abstract

In the last few years, the demand of energy over the globe is increasing at the rapid rate due to the rapid growth in industrialization in developing countries. The global energy scenario is changing day by day, and developing nations like Bangladesh and India are contributing a great share in the development of energy scenario. In Bangladesh, renewable energy share is only 3% out of its total energy consumption and production and now Government of Bangladesh is promoting the renewable energy projects in order to promote the renewable energy trend and sustainability in Bangladesh. Being a developing country, the electric power required in Bangladesh has been expanding at an essentially high rate. This requirement is fulfilled by the continued development in GDP as of late. The electricity generation of Bangladesh is now fulfilling the demand of electricity of its neighbor countries as well as its small towns. One-third of power generation in Bangladesh depends on the expensive fossil fuels which are imported from other countries and developed nations. The electricity generation in Bangladesh from fossil fuels affects the sustainability of nation and also results in high carbon emissions which is still a cause of worry. The rest 65% of power generation in Bangladesh depends on the natural gas resources which is depleting at the very fast rate, and there will be no future reservation of these resources. There is a need of renewable sources of energy which can fulfill the power demands of towns as well as industries of Bangladesh. Many studies have been done on the factors, drivers and barriers in renewable energy in Bangladesh. This study focuses on the current scenario and future scopes of renewable energy in Bangladesh. An extensive literature survey is taken for this study from the various databases like Elsevier, Springer and Web of Science. Further, future research directions are also given which will motivate the researchers to promote the renewable energy trend in Bangladesh. A brief outline of current electricity generation status and renewable energy source situations in Bangladesh has been presented in this paper.