Bangladesh Plans Its First Waste-Based Power Plant

The Bangladesh government is planning to set up a power plant based on municipal waste with an intent to address the issue of waste generation as well as expanding the basket of renewable energy technologies in the country.

The Bangladesh government is looking to develop a municipal waste-based power plant at the outskirts of capital Dhaka. The government has reportedly initiated the process of forming a company to set up and operate the power plant. The project will be first one in the country to use waste for power generation.

Government officials informed the media that around 200 metric tons of municipal sold waste and garment waste is generated every day, with the waste currently dumped in landfills from where it would now be collected and supplied as fuel for the power plant.

The Bangladesh government is looking to expand the power generation infrastructure. It has signed agreements with several foreign companies including India’s NTPC Limited and Reliance Power and Singapore’s Semcorp for development of large-scale power plants based on conventional power technologies.

But the government has also set its eyes on renewable energy technologies. Bangladesh has set a target to have 5% power generation from renewable energy sources by the end of this year and increase this share to 10% by 2020. At present, the country has an installed renewable energy capacity of 411 MW.

The Bangladesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) has issued draft regulations for the implementation of feed-in tariff for renewable energy projects which is likely to boost confidence among investors. The draft is being circulated between the various branches and ministries of the government.