Analysis of Cost, Energy and Emission of Solar Home Systems in Bangladesh

Abstract

Climate change and energy crisis are the serious challenges that Bangladesh is facing at the moment. Energy situation in Bangladesh is extremely critical and its major power stations are run by natural gas and it’s reserve is now under threat if no new gas mine is identified. This acute electricity crisis along with the conventional fuel crisis is affecting every sector of the country and economy is being crippled. To reduce the dependency on fossil fuels, renewable energy like solar home system could play a vital role in this regards. In this paper, the cost, energy and emission of solar home systems installed in Bangladesh are analyzed. It has been found that around 1.4 million solar home systems are already installed by January 2013 in Bangladesh. Normally 40~85 Wp systems are mostly used in the rural user level. The cost of a 40 Wp system was around 24,000 BDT, whereas for a 85 Wp system, the cost was 45,000 BDT. Average value of payback period was 4.2 years and varied from 3.1 to 6.5 years. On the other hand, NPV varies 34,500 BDT to 14800 BDT. Total primary energy requirement for a 50Wp in its total life of 20 years is 4593 MJth. This gives around 253 kg of CO2 emission. Whereas, a 50 Wp SHS supplies around 11773 MJth of Energy in 20 years.  Energy payback was found to be 7.80 years. The total CO2 emission reduction was 11604 kg in 20 years.

Keywords

• Solar Home System, Bangladesh, Cost, Energy, Emission

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