Renewable Energy Resources in Bangladesh: Prospects, Challenges and Policy Implications

Bangladesh earned lower middle-income country status in 2015 due to satisfactory level of (previous) continuous economic growth. Later the country entered into the United Nations' list of Least Developed Countries (LDC) in 2018 and is on track to achieve the middle-income country status by 2024. Key criteria for this achievement will be the nationwide rapid sustainable economic growth in coming years. Economic advancement of the country will be largely depended on its energy sector flourish, more explicitly on electricity generation. At present more than 90% of the electricity in Bangladesh is produced from fossil fuels (from imported and national reserve) such as diesel oil, furnace oil, natural gas, and coal. Irrational burning of these fossil fuels expedites the rapid depletion of national coal and natural gas reserve as well as put additional burden on national economy due to oil import, threatening continuous electricity supply for the future economic prosperity. At the same time deterioration of environmental quality as a whole is also associated with this fossil fuels usage. Thus, to ensure an unremitting supply of electricity in coming days, the country needs to have both sustainable and environment friendly energy sources and technologies. Hence, this article discusses the potentiality of various renewable energy resources (solar, hydro, biomass, and wind), their current contribution in country's energy sector, and relevant challenges for utilization. In addition, this paper includes the future government policies for renewable energy integration with the conventional energy generation for overall energy security attainment and economic development of Bangladesh.