Project description

Title: Sustainable energy for development
Commissioned by: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
Country: Bangladesh
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources (MoPEMR)
Overall term: 2007 to 2011

Context

Reliable and efficient modern energy services are a key to reducing poverty. Bangladesh, however, is an energy starved country. Only 40% of its 160 million people are connected to the electricity grid and, in the rural areas, where over 70% of the population live, only 20% have electricity. Just six per cent of the entire population have access to natural gas, and they are primarily in urban areas. Most people in the rural areas depend on kerosene lamps for light. 80% of all Bangladeshis cook on stoves burning biomass, such as rice husks, jute sticks, cow dung or wood. In fact, half of Bangladesh’s total energy consumption is derived from biomass.

Those who do have an electricity connection experience daily blackouts, because the demand for power is so much greater than can be reliably supplied. Almost all medium-sized and large factories in the country are forced to install captive or standby generation facilities (gas or diesel engines) to avoid interruptions that would leave workers idle for hours on end, or cause entire production runs to be discarded. Small enterprises and micro-businesses simply close at dusk. Children cannot study in the evenings, and medical facilities cannot refrigerate their medicines or vaccines. At the same time, the smoke and soot created by kerosene lamps and conventional stoves cause eye problems and respiratory diseases.

Objective

Decentralised renewable energy supplies to households and businesses have increased, and the energy available is used more efficiently. Poorer families are better able to replace their obsolete and unhealthy appliances, such as traditional stoves and kerosene lamps.

Approach

The Sustainable energy for development programme uses a multi-level approach, cooperating with a variety of partners. At the policy level, the Ministry of Power, Energy, and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) is its most important partner. GIZ is advising the Ministry on ways to improve the legal and institutional framework for the energy sector. This includes the development of energy policies, as well as rules and regulations for energy conservation. The programme is also supporting the establishment of the Sustainable Energy Development Authority.

For the development and adaptation of technologies, the programme cooperates with research and educational institutions, such as the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and the Bangladesh Rice Research Institution. To disseminate these technologies, it works with many local partners, most of which are consulting firms and NGOs. The most important of these NGOs are Grameen Shakti and BRAC. Recently the programme has also started working with the World Bank.

Results achieved so far

The solar home systems programme, initiated by the state-owned financing company Infrastructure Development Company Ltd., is now one of the world’s most successful solar energy programmes. With the support of GIZ it has installed over 160,000 solar home systems of 30 – 85 Wp, in the country’s villages, benefiting over 1.5 million Bangladeshis. They now have light, which enables them to earn more from producing handicrafts, and through the extended opening hours for market stalls, cafés, rice mills, saw mills, tailoring shops and grocery shops. The light helps the children to study in the evenings. Community health centres can run a refrigerator for storing vaccines and other medicines. The villagers can charge and use mobile phones, which help them keep in touch with market prices for their produce, and with their relatives working in the cities or overseas.

Over 1,000 biogas plants have been installed in slaughterhouses, dairy farms and egg-layer poultry farms which saves traditional cooking fuels, as well as preventing diseases and producing of pathogen-free fertiliser. More than 50 biogas plants using human sewage have been installed in public institutions, such as hostels, madrassas, schools and police dormitories.

The programme has trained 9,000 technicians and 500 supervisors, who have so far produced over 140,000 domestic stoves and more than 2,000 commercial stoves. These are also used for yarn-dyeing cottage industries, saving at least 150,000 tonnes of firewood a year. Over 1,000 people are earning their livelihoods by installing and maintaining improved stoves. The stoves are designed to draw smoke cleanly out of buildings, so they have reduced health risks for the users, who are mostly women accompanied by their children.

Cooperating with the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, the Energy Auditor of the Energy Audit Cell, MPEMR, and Modern Erection Ltd., the programme successfully piloted an improved system in several rice mills for parboiling rice. By optimising the old system the consumption of rice husks was reduced by over 50%.

The advisory services to MPEMR have helped to improve the legal and institutional framework of the energy sector.

Download

• Data and analysis of the energy sector in Bangladesh with particular reference to energy efficiency.
  Sustainable Energy for Development. A Project Supp
  en-Productivity-Improvement-in-Industry-through-Energy-Efficiency-Bangladesh.pdf, 0.33 MB (english)

Further information

• Local Website
  Renewable Energy Information Network (REIN) of the Local Government Engineering Department (LEGD)
  www.lged-rein.org
• Efficient energy for Bangladesh
  A documentary by Deutsche Welle with background information.
  http://www.dw-world.de/...