Rooftop solar projects beam through pandemic haze
Like any other business, new clean energy ventures are facing disruptions with their tempo for the Covid-19 pandemic. Among them are rooftop-based solar projects focusing factory buildings. Yet some entrepreneurs pushed on with their projects even following the rogue virus brought businesses to their knees.
Paragon Poultry is among those firms. The leading poultry breeder implemented three new rooftop solar projects of 750 kW through the pandemic to lessen cost and harness other benefits for instance a reduction of temperature inside factory premises.
"Initially, the Covid-19 situation was a challenge for us. Later, we could actually overcome that," said Md Moshiur Rahman, managing director of Paragaon Group, which also runs feed and frozen snacks businesses.
Paragon said it launched its first rooftop project of 723 kWp capacity in February 2018 and installed the next one in February this season.
Based on the experience, it found there are a number of direct and indirect advantages of producing power using the otherwise unused space on factory roofs.
"It includes a number of direct and indirect benefits. It generates one taka benefit for per watt of electricity compared to electricity bought from public electricity providers," said Rahman.
"We are able to sell excess electricity to the federal government too. In addition to the cash benefits, one of the biggest advantages is a decrease in house temperature," he said, citing that it had been in the number of three to four 4 degrees.
He said rooftop solar projects were very effective, particularly for poultry farms.
"Solar energy has a crucial role in carbon footprint, to lessen CO2 and helps to make a natural green environment," said the most notable executive of Paragon, whose rooftop-based solar power panels have a power generation capacity of over 1.5 MW.
The group also operates a 10 MW of solar powered energy plant and a solar mini-grid.
As yet, solar projects of 15 MW have already been installed on the rooftops of public and private organisations, said Mohammad Alauddin, chairman of the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (Sreda).
"This is a good business case for professional and commercial consumers as per unit cost of electricity for solar now stands at around Tk 3 whereas cost of electricity for industrial consumers rises to Tk 10 per unit," he said.
"We are planning to hold a workshop with industries to inform them about cost reduction," he added.
Alauddin said the outbreak of the novel coronavirus has afflicted all walks of life, including renewable energy ventures.
Rooftop-based solar projects have opened a fresh avenue of opportunities along with solar powered energy plants, solar irrigation and solar mini-grids.
This is since the scope to further spread the usage of solar home systems have narrowed as an inverse aftereffect of the expansion of the national grid to attain electricity to almost all places.
Solar projects deliver 415 MW of the 650 MW of renewable energy that contributes almost three % to the country's electricity generation capacity of 22,214 MW, according to Sreda data.
Activities of rooftop-based solar projects started gaining pace since last month as economic activities revived, said Nasir Ahmed, director and chief technology officer of solar power solutions provider Solaric.
"Industries had come to a halt due to Covid induced disruption. Now, rooftop-based solar projects are picking right up," he said, adding that Solaric implemented a rooftop-based solar project of 244 KW for AKH Group during the ongoing pandemic.
Garment manufacturer Comfit Composite Knit plans to execute a 2 MW solar project on its factory rooftops to meet up some of its requirement, said Hasan Imam Siddiki, head of its corporate finance.
Equipment has recently been bought to first materialise a 300 KW solar project at a factory in Mirzapur, Tangail, he said.
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease has slowed the installation process. "We could have already been done by this time and entered the next phase," added Siddiki.
The Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (Idcol), among the major financiers of renewable energy schemes in Bangladesh, is not pushing borrowers to go fast owing to the pandemic-induced business and fund crunch, said its executive director and CEO, Mahmood Malik.
Idcol has up to now approved practically Tk 162 crore-worth loans for 26 rooftop projects having a combined capacity of 31 MW. Of these, nine of 9.6MW capacity have been completely realised by entrepreneurs, according to the financial institution.
Rooftop based projects gained pace prior to the pandemic, said Idcol's Head of Renewable Energy Md Enamul Karim Pavel.
And the positive side is that businesses which had to suspend work temporarily now want to resume work, he said.
"We are also getting applications for new projects," said Pavel.
