2. Renewable Energy Basics and its Growing Importance Energy generated from RES, such as solar, wind, biomass, thermal or hydro, etc., is theoretically considered as renewable as each one could yield an infinite amount of energy. Uses of energy generated via these sources are not new and ancient people successfully utilized these also. For example, the Egyptian Nile civilization used to utilize the wind to move ships, grain-grinding facilities, and boat propellers. Even the Chinese and Japanese started using wind-run water pumping systems in the historical past, leading to cost minimization dramatically. The succeeding civilizations opted to use windmills as alternative sources since it is accessible and comparatively less expensive. In fact, in recent times, the increasing energy crisis and stringent enforcement of carbon emission laws for reducing GHG emissions have forced many nations to think about alternative supplies of energy. This segment will highlight some basics about RES, RE, their importance and relevant concerns in exploiting them.
3. Prospects of Renewable Energy in Bangladesh Fossil-fuel sources, more specifically natural gas, oil and coal, play the lead role in electricity generation in Bangladesh. The electricity demand in the country increased considerably from 0.4 to 1.38 quadrillion between 1997 and 2016 and the country so far could not provide 100% access to electricity, due to inter alia, the inadequate volume of energy sources. The total coal assets in Bangladesh were only 1063 million tons, whereas, the natural gas reserve demonstrated to be available with a volume of 9.7 trillion cubic feet (TCF) according to the statistics of 2013. Besides, to supply fuel in different industries, including energy, Bangladesh imports nearly 1.2 million tons of crude oil and 2.6 million tons of refined petroleum commodities every year. Bangladesh absorbed approximately 2.132 million metric tons of coal, 175.69 kilo barrels of oil per day and 28.37 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2018.
4. Renewable Energy in Bangladesh: Issues and Challenges Bangladesh has a high potential to move towards a better and more sustainable country with greener energy without compromising the country’s economic efficiency, human dignity, standards of living, and financial development. Nevertheless, considerable development activities, including a sustainable power source and green arrangements in Bangladesh have had limited accomplishments and are confronting various challenges which are mostly financial, technical, and regulatory in nature. It may be pertinent to share here that these challenges are not unique in Bangladesh’s context, rather these present in most jurisdictions. Since RE projects are more complex, unpredictable and full of unforeseen risks and dangers, the investors in this field may face serious financial challenges having impacts on future development and commercialization of the projects and technologies. For the investors, it is difficult to convince the financial institutions and other financiers to get the necessary support. Since they use new technologies that are uncertain, this may cause the payback period to exceed their expectations. Hence, it acts as an impediment to innovative projects. This vulnerability results in high financing expenses for research, improvement and preparation in this sector. Thus, this deceptively raises the cost of clean energy generation, postponing their full assimilation into the energy market. Sometimes, different RE related projects require huge initial investments. This is again very challenging for the entrepreneurs since there are already available standards, but cheaper alternatives in the market [80,81]. Besides, there are geographical factors that have effects on the performance of RE projects. Hence, it can be concluded that an already successful RE project in one country probably will not be realistic to another nation for the presence of sunlight-based variables, biomass, wind and sea between nations in the tropical and other areas.
5. Renewable Energy in Bangladesh: Legal, Regulatory and Policy Aspects It has already been shared that energy production, management, and supply to the people have become a serious concern for the Government of Bangladesh. Therefore, the government has formulated various policies and adopted regulatory measures [42]. In this context, the contribution of RES in the energy mix can be an exceptional accomplishment that would influence the economic development of the nation significantly.