'Intensify efforts to scale up renewable energy technology'

Prime Minister’s Energy Advisor Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury on Thursday urged young scientists to intensify their efforts to scale up renewable energy technology to cope with the local demands.

“You have to lay more emphasis on the development of technology to serve the country,” he told local engineers and scientists at the 7th International Conference on Development in the Renewable Energy Technology (ICDRET’24) in the city’s United International University (UIU).

He also urged the organisations and companies working in the renewable energy sector to integrate their efforts with the clean energy initiative.

He said the country has 1.2 million diesel-run irrigation pumps.

If these pumps are converted into solar-run ones, and their additional power is given to the grid, it will save huge amounts of foreign currencies in fuel import, he said.

The conference is organized by the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering and Centre for Energy Research of UIU.

With Prof Md Abul Kashem Mia, vice-chancellor of UIU in the chair, the event was addressed by Prof Rezwan Khan, organising chair, ICDRET'24 and executive director, Institute for Advanced Research (IAR), UIU, Prof Hasan Sarwar, dean, School of Science and Engineering, UIU and Shahriar Ahmed Chowdhury, organising co-chair, ICDRET'24 and director, CER.