DHAKA, Jan 16, 2022 (BSS) - State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid has said international cooperation is essential to address the global energy challenges with reliability.

“It is necessary to enhance regional and sub-regional cooperation. We have to work together for modern and innovative technology open to all with affordable prices,” he said while addressing the 12th Assembly of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) yesterday evening.

The state minister said Bangladesh is making every effort to expand renewable energy with limited resources.

Nasrul Hamid presided over the Member Interventions Session where delegates from Zimbabwe, Colombia, India, USA, El Salvador, Belgium, Norway, Uruguay, Canada, Indonesia, Singapore, Greece, Spain, China, Japan, Switzerland, Croatia, Turkmenistan, Serbia, Germany, France, Italy, San Marino and Saudi Arabia spoke at the session.

“By installing more than six million solar home systems outside the grid network, the government brought more than 20 million people under electrification facilities,” he added.

Besides, the government has been supplying grid quality electricity to remote areas of the country through 26 mini grids, Nasrul said.

“More than 2,000 solar irrigation systems are now in operation, which reduced consumption of significant quantity of diesel. So far, eight solar parks with a capacity of 231 MW power is being supplied to the grid. The installed capacity of solar power in the country is about 650 MW,” he added.

Nasrul further said that it is very difficult for Bangladesh to set up large scale solar power plants due to competitive demand for agriculture or other necessary of land.

“Possibility of floating solar power technological and rooftop solar power generation system has been looking for alternative arrangement,” he said.

The state minister said that Bangladesh government has launched net metering guideline to encourage rooftop solar power system.

“Steps have been taken to explore possibilities of renewable energy to meet renewable power targets by wind power, electricity from waste and other renewable energy sources. 245 MW wind power is being under implementation so far,” he said.

Dhaka North City Corporation signed an agreement for 42.5 MW ‘waste to energy’ plant construction adjacent to a dumping site, Nasrul said.