Bangladesh’s prevailing energy crisis, brought on by instability in the global fuel market, is being felt keenly by each and every citizen, especially given just how much of our daily life now depends on an uninterrupted supply of electricity, not to mention the various industries keeping our economy afloat.
Even though the government has been working towards the construction of two major power plants for close to a decade now, one of them might soon be nearing completion and operational status. The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) is expected to start production in 2024.
This should come as a sigh of relief to anyone who has had to endure multiple hour-long instances of load-shedding in the last few months.
The RNPP is set to play a major role in meeting Bangladesh’s ever-growing energy demand -- the first unit of the nuclear power plant is all set to supply 1,200MW of electricity from next year, while the same amount of electricity will be available from the second unit in 2024.
While power generation itself is all but a given, the main obstruction lies in how that power would be supplied to the national grid as this depends entirely on electricity supply authorities.
Needless to say, cooperation will be key.
However, while RNPP is set to greatly impact Bangladesh’s future power requirements, there are still concerns over the project, specifically its environmental impact. Nuclear power has proven to be an incredibly clean source of energy compared to the use of traditional, unclean fossil fuels, but the nuclear waste they create as a byproduct need to be handled and disposed of with the utmost care.
No one should have to worry about being able to keep the lights on, to that end, Bangladesh’s future looks brighter than ever.