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Allocation too tiny for green power targets

Suman Saha
The government may not be able to achieve its target of producing 800 megawatts of electricity by 2015 using renewable energy owing to a lack of funds, green energy analysts said.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith allocated just Tk 400 crore for financing renewable energy-based power plants in the upcoming fiscal year.
"We cannot match the equation as to how the government will achieve the target with such a tiny amount of funds," said Munawar Misbah Moin, managing director of Rahimafrooz Renewable Energy Ltd.
As of March, the country's capacity to generate electricity from renewable sources such as solar energy, bio-mass and windbased plants stands at 363.8 megawatt, which is 3.51 percent of the total power generation capacity, according to Bangladesh Economic Review 2014.
The government will have to generate an additional 436MW of electricity within the next one and a half years, the cost for which is estimated to be Tk 9,000 crore, according to Moin.
He said private companies are usually interested in financing such projects when the government bears at least 35-40 percent ofthe total cost.
"But the government aims to allocate only Tk 400 crore, so it is an unrealistic plan."
Saiful Huque, general secretary of Bangladesh Solar Energy Society, echoed the same, adding that the proposed allocation is not enough to meet the target.
He also urged the government to strengthen the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA) by appointing skilled professionals. "It is a must to man the SREDA with the right professionals if the government wants to achieve its renewable energy-related goals," said Huque, also a professor at the Institute of Energy at Dhaka University.
He called upon the government to concentrate on solar rooftops, mini-grids and biogas to meet its electricity generation target from renewable sources.
The country will be able to generate at least 500MW of electricity from poultry litter if the government provides incentives to poultry farmers for establishing biogas plants, Huque added.
Mahmood Malik, chief executive of Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL), however, suggested that the government stress wind-based power plants due to its "tremendous potential" and low generation cost.
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Besides, solar home systems require lots of lands to install, so it would be judicious to shift priorities to windbased plants, he said.
IDCOL has already financed three million solar home systems. The total installed capacity of these home systems is around 130MW, sufficient to provide clean electricity to 13 million rural people, according to Malik.