Renewable energy brings power to rural Bangladesh

Global Business

Rural houses in Bangladesh are getting power at a rapid rate, thanks to decades of actions by the government, the private sector, and others. This includes the more than one in six households that rely on solar energy.

CGTN’s Rian Maelzer reports.

Bangladesh now has nearly 5 million solar homes and shops, tens of thousands of biogas plants, and nearly one million biogas cooking stoves in use.

Power demand is growing about 10 percent a year, far outstripping supply despite the use of renewables and heavy investment in new power plants.

About two thirds of the country’s households get their electricity from the main power grid. But the government aims to increase that number to 90 percent by 2018, and for every household to be connected by 2021.

Analysts said renewables energy should not just be a stop-gap measure till the electricity grid is further expanded.

“What they can do is to connect all those individual households to the grid so that that surplus power can be put into the national grid and become part of the overall country’s power supply,” Quimiao Fan, country director for the World Bank, Bangladesh said.


Kabir Hassan talks about the future of Bangladesh’s economy

IMF predicts the growth rate of Bangladesh’ economy to be about 7 percent. To discuss what this could mean for the future of Bangladesh’s economy, CGTN’s Rachelle Akuffo spoke to Kabir Hassan, finance professor at the University of New Orleans.