Owing to the failure to properly implement the Renewable Energy (RE) policy initiated in 2008, while government subsidies have increased, the burden of increasing bills has been borne by the general public.
Meanwhile, issues such as carbon emissions remain unaddressed in the new draft policy (2022). As a result, under the new “Renewable Energy Policy-2022 (Draft),” the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has proposed putting more emphasis on topics such as renewable energy, carbon emissions and prohibiting the use of fossil fuels.
They also suggest introducing a carbon cap for all industries and eventually shifting to a carbon tax.
However, the policy watchdog believes that this draft regulation will help to alleviate the current electricity problem.
CPD gave a complete review of the new draft of Renewable Energy Policy 2022 at a media briefing titled “Draft Integrated Power and Energy Master Plan (IEPMP) : Can it Achieve Clean Energy Targets?” on Thursday (March 23) at the CPD office.
The policy watchdog also recommended that future energy and electricity policies be based on renewable energy policy frameworks. They also asked the government to abandon the proposal to incorporate coal-fired power stations as clean energy by including carbon capture technology into the draft renewable energy policy.
The briefing covered the possibilities of renewable energy in Bangladesh as well as the policies that other countries have implemented in the renewable energy sector. They reviewed Bangladesh's cross-country analysis of the Renewable Energy Policy with India and Vietnam.
In his keynote presentation, Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at CPD said: “Analyzing the policies of 2008 and 2022, we can see that the vision of 2008 was focused on fuel availability, emissions and energy security. There is more detail in the 2022 policy which is focused on efficient, sustainable, secure, affordable, competitive and environmentally friendly power systems. So there has been a positive shift in policies.”
He added that by implementing the Renewable Energy Policy-2022, the current crisis in the power sector will be reduced. The government is now under heavy subsidy pressure for short-sighted and wrong decisions in the power sector and because of the war in Ukraine, it has been imposed on consumers.
Regarding the changes between the 2008 and 2022 (Draft) policy, he said that the new draft of the Renewable Energy Policy adopted in 2008 (Renewable Energy Policy-2022) has brought several changes in the implementation and spread of renewable energy, which is more detailed and rich in new proposals than the original policy.
However, at the same time, there are contradictions in some decisions of the original and draft policies.
Key features of the new RE policy
Renewable Energy (RE) resources are rather well covered in the current policy. Wind Energy: Onshore Wind Energy, Offshore Wind Energy, Solar Wind Hybrid; Biomass Energy: Biomass, Biogas, Biofuel; Waste to Electrical Energy; Hydro Energy; and other Renewable Energy Resources: Geothermal Energy, Tidal Energy, Wave Energy, River Current, Hydrogen Energy have all been discussed.
It is broken into three phases and presented as a roadmap. The first phase has a year limit of up to 2025, the second phase has a year limit of 2026-2030, and the third phase has a year limit of 2031-2041.
According to the RE policy (Draft), it is estimated that in order to achieve 10% renewable power by 2025, 2500 MW must be generated.
To achieve the 40% renewable target by 2041, 20,000 MW would have to be generated from renewables.
CPD's findings and recommendation
In their concluding remark, CPD said that the new draft policy is much more detailed and covers more aspects than the RE policy 2008, but it still has a lot more room to improve.
They strongly believe the revised draft could be a tool for approaching renewable energy.
They also found some miscalculations in the report, they said, according to the calculation of RE policy (draft), the tentative MW to reach 40% renewables will be 20,000 whereas as per the calculation from Jica Bangladesh's Integrated Energy and Power Master Plan project, it is 25,662.8 MW.
CPD said, a new renewable energy policy is needed instead of a revision of the RE2008 and for that this policy could use the draft prepared so far.
Our new policy should focus on clean energy issues, reduction of carbon emission issues, and discouraging fossil fuels.
They also suggest introducing a carbon cap for all industries and eventually shifting to a carbon tax.
