The architect of solar energy in Bangladesh

After almost a year of effort, a family in Tangail’s Ghatail Upazila managed to install a solar home system in their house in 1996. As the news spread to surrounding villages, a festive atmosphere descended among the villagers.

“When the light came on in the country’s first house running on solar electricity, there was joy all around. The homeowner threw a feast for the neighbourhood and my team. That was a momentous occasion for all of us,” said Dipal Chandra Barua.

The pioneer of solar energy expansion in Bangladesh, also the founding chairman of Bright Green Energy Foundation (BGEF), was recalling the memory of setting up the first solar home system in the country’s history while talking to The Business Post recently.

Now dubbed the architect of green energy in Bangladesh, Dipal has received numerous honours and awards from local and global platforms, including the Zayed Future Energy Prize 2009, for making a green energy revolution in a developing South Asian nation.

With a career consisting of 35 years of microcredit innovation for Grameen Bank and 28 years in the renewable energy sector under his belt, Dipal continues to work for the development of affordable solar systems in irrigation, household and other renewable sources.

“Selling and installing solar home systems (SHS) was not pleasant at all in the 1990s. We went from village to village, met people in groups, encouraged them to install SHS and used different publicity methods but found no one willing to try this,” he reminisced.

“Mostly because the price of solar panels was high at that time and many families were not even making any money annually. People did not go for it as they lacked the ability despite interest,” he said.

After 28 years, however, solar has now reached the homes of many poor families across the country, leading Bangladesh to achieve the world’s number one position by installing around 6.5 million solar home systems.

Journey started in his village

Born in 1954, Dipal completed his graduation from economics at Chittagong University. He was a student of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. His career also started as a partner of Yunus when they founded Grameen Bank in 1976.

The microcredit bank had started its first financial activities at Jobra village in Chattogram’s Hathazari Upazila, where Dipal was born.

Dipal is among the few people who have tirelessly worked behind the scenes to make microcredit and the bank successful. He successfully served as the deputy managing director of Grameen Bank until 2009.

The young economics graduate was busy developing microcredit programmes in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. At the time, he could not even dream that he would one day aspire to bring forth a green energy revolution in the homes of the poor around the country.

Talking to The Business Post, Dipal said, “I travelled all over the country to popularise microcredit at the initial stage. I held regular meetings with the marginal villagers and worked out various strategies on how to be successful with low capital.

“At the same time, I saw only disappointment on people’s faces as there was no electricity in their houses. Most of the areas around the country used to plunge into complete darkness when the sun went down. And due to a lack of kerosene, both poor and well-to-do households could not even use traditional oil lanterns at night.”

This scenario was very frustrating, he said. Due to the lack of power, people were not able to do business by taking loans from Grameen Bank. “This made me think about what I can do for the people.”

“Meanwhile, I attended many seminars abroad hosted by renowned organisations, including World Bank, IMF and other global NGOs, as a Grameen Bank delegate. At one of the seminars, there were many delegates related to renewable energy, especially solar power, representing several countries.

After he heard one of them speaking on how this new technology could revolutionise the lives of the rural poor, the idea came to Dipal, he said. “I started thinking about building an organisation for renewable energy expansion. Soon after, I took the initiative to build the rural electricity programme.”

In 1996, Dipal successfully launched Grameen Shakti, the country’s first renewable energy institute, as the founding managing director and started expanding solar systems in rural Bangladesh.

First phase of the revolution

After establishing Grameen Shakti, Dipal faced bigger challenges. It took time before people showed interest in how the sun could provide electricity. Then slowly, that inquisitiveness turned into a genuine interest to own such a system.

The problem with such futuristic technology was that the expectations almost always outweighed what the systems could achieve, he said,

Describing the initial experience, Dipal said, “We thought that people would easily accept this technology. Initially, we tried to spread it among Grameen Bank clients but it turned out that most of them are very poor. Then we went to the middle class or rich people in the villages. But they were not interested either.”

After realising the situation, he made the solar home system (SHS) affordable for the poor by introducing a monthly instalment-based financial model, which in the long run made the SHS programme in Bangladesh the largest in the world.

That family in Tangail was the first to buy and install solar panels. That day’s memory is unique because it was the first in the country’s history, Dipal said. “Soon, some rich families in neighbouring villages showed interest in installing solar panels.”

“I continued to document these activities and participate in international seminars to highlight the issues hindering solar energy expansion in Bangladesh. Afterwards, international NGOs started showing great interest in funding our activities,” he said.

“Meanwhile, I was pushing the solar equipment manufacturing companies to supply the equipment at cheaper prices. During that time, some village women were trained to make small parts of the SHS. It opened the way of employment for thousands of women across the country,” he added.

Dipal continued, “Between 1996 and 2003, we installed 10,000 solar home systems. This may not seem like much but they were worth their weight in gold.

“Selling those 10,000 systems gave us the confidence that we could really provide an alternative energy source for Bangladesh. To us, those first 10,000 seemed like 10 million and the people who chose to buy them were real pioneers.”

But simply being a pioneer does not guarantee one’s success and the government finally stepped in to help the fledgling industry in 2003, with the Infrastructure Development Company of Bangladesh (IDCOL) making its first foray into financing the desperately under-financed sector and ensuring rapid expansion of SHS. Then, the demand for solar panels around the country increased as time progressed.

Dipal showed that solar photovoltaic (PV) technology can be successfully implemented on a mass scale to provide rural people with climate-friendly energy, light, income and health if it’s made affordable. As a result, a new sector was developed with numerous job opportunities.

For his innovation and commitment to alternative energy, Dipal was awarded the first Zayed Future Energy Prize in 2009 in Abu Dhabi. He was the first winner of the prize since its introduction by the UAE government.

Leaving Grameen, starting new journey

Dipal left both Grameen Bank and Grameen Shakti in 2009 after a successful career of 35 years at the bank. At the time, he was serving as the bank’s DMD and the MD of Grameen Shakti.

Afterwards, he decided to pursue renewable energy development on his own. As part of this, he established BGEF in 2010.

By then, a huge market and demand for renewable energy was created in Bangladesh and about 100 companies were already in the market. He then founded Bangladesh Solar and Renewable Energy Association (BSREA) in 2011 to bring all entrepreneurs under one umbrella.

Apart from taking solar energy nationwide through his own company, Dipal also started making outstanding contributions to government policy research institutes Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority and IDCOL.

His monthly instalment-based payment model was later adopted by Word Bank. JICA, ADB, KfW, Islamic Development Bank, UNDP, DFID and GIZ also started supporting the solar programme in Bangladesh.

BGEF became IDCOL’s partner organisation in June 2011. In June 2015, it started working on Solar Irrigation Pump (SIP) for replacing the traditional inefficient diesel-run pumps used in the agriculture sector for cultivation.

BGEF is now working on establishing and promoting renewable energy projects like SHS, SIP, Solar Street Light and Utility-Scale Solar, covering all rooftops with solar panels and integrating with National Grid, etc.

The aim is to explore a new horizon to scale up the country’s electricity production to ensure a green environment for future generations and make Bangladesh the “First Solar Nation of the World,” with half of the people enjoying the benefit of renewable energy by 2050.

About solar irrigation pumps

Talking to The Business Post, Dipal said that solar-based irrigation systems can be an innovative and environment-friendly solution to mitigate the influence of climate change for saving Bangladesh’s agro-based economy.

“About 11.63 per cent of the GDP comes from agriculture in our country and over 1.3 million diesel-operated pumps are currently operating in the fields.

“On the other hand, 2,873 solar irrigation pumps, generating around 53.85 MW of electricity, have been installed. This system has the possibility of generating up to 6,500 MW for SIPs, which will hopefully replace the diesel-run pumps in rural areas,” he said.

Each SIP replaces five shallow pumps and potentially over 1.3 million shallow pumps will be replaced by approximately 260,000 SIPs by 2030, which will generate up to 6,500 MW and prevent 20.8 million tonnes of carbon emissions, he said.

BGEF has already successfully piloted the nation’s first grid integration of solar imitation pumping systems in Kushtia, which has already transmitted over 18 MWh of energy to the national grid.

Milestones

Since its journey started after registering in January 2010, BGEF has achieved tremendous growth. Since June 2011, it has successfully installed over 325,000 SHS in rural off-grid areas through its network of over 300 branches across the country and created over 1,700 jobs.

It has also spearheaded the installation of 21 SIPs, 4,300 improved cooking stoves, 150 biogas plants, around 12,634 solar street lights, and around 3,000 solar rooftop systems around the country.

It also piloted the world’s first Solar Powered Arsenic Water Treatment Plant in Cumilla.

BGEF has implemented the nation’s first grid integration with solar irrigation pumping system with UNDP, Swarm Electrification for Energizing Inclusive Development Project with GIZ, and installed solar systems in 28 upazilas around the country since FY2015-16 under TR/Kabita Solar Programme of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief.

It also installed 10 KW solar systems with net metering at Thanchi Upazila Health Complex in Bandarban and setup Green Technology Centres (GTC) to take services to the client’s doorstep.

Women empowerment

Dipal C Barua has made it possible to successfully meet the domestic demand for all solar accessories such as charge controllers, CFLs, invertors, etc. through production at rural GTCs with the help of local women technicians. All GTCs are currently run by women.

Emphasising women’s empowerment along with the expansion of renewable energy, Dipal introduced GTCs to train rural women and help them become green technicians for the future to provide after-sell services and product support to rural households that use renewable energy technology.

They provide training for assembling and repairing solar accessories such as charge controllers, lamp shade circuits, switches and other spare parts of solar home systems, he said.

Over 300 women were trained to become entrepreneurs in green energy. And the women technicians working at rural GTCs and assembling and repairing accessories for SHS are earning more than Tk 5,000 per month.

They are also providing maintenance services to their communities at the rural level and training other women for becoming green technicians.

Achievements

Dipal has been honoured with various medals and awards at home and abroad as a pioneer of renewable energy expansion in Bangladesh.

Apart from the Zayed Future Energy Prize he won as the first Bangladeshi in 2009, the awards he received for microcredit and solar energy expansion include European Solar Prize from Germany in 2006, IDCOL Award in 2005, International Micro Finance Award from Planet Finance (Paris) 2009, Ashden Outstanding Achievement Award (UK) 2008, and National Environment Award (Bangladesh) 2008.

Also, Energy Globe Award (Brussels) 2008, Right Livelihood Award (Sweden) 2007, Tech Museum Award (USA) 2007, Ashden Award (UK) 2006, Solar Prize (for outstanding performance) 2004, USAID Best Theme Award 2003.