Putting a Land Lens to Renewable Energy Investments in Bangladesh

In carrying out this assignment, LEI has partnered with Bangladesh company Environmental and Resource Analysis Centre (ENRAC), bringing safeguards, planning and design for infrastructure experience along with software systems for data analysis and planning. Another partner is Australia’s University of New South Wales, School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy (SPREE)[1], specialists in photovoltaic installations in a range of large scale national and international settings. To successfully deliver this project long-time colleague of LEI, Robert Cross, will be leading our team. He is a land specialist, with 30 years’ experience in land administration in various developed and developing countries, including Bangladesh.

Our consortium will analyse the land administration framework in Bangladesh for renewable energy investments. In so doing, we will strengthen the country’s capacity to identify renewable energy investment sites, including the repurposing disused coal power plant sites.

Over the years, Bangladesh’s demand for electricity has rapidly grown due to industrialisation, urbanisation, and economic development. To achieve the Bangladesh Government’s climate change commitments, improve socio-economic conditions and alleviate poverty, Bangladesh needs to bridge the gap between electricity demand and supply. Hence, energy and power infrastructure form essential components of Bangladesh’s target to become a developed country by 2041. A Power System Master Plan (PSMP) was prepared in 2016 to formulate comprehensive energy and power development up to the year 2041. The PSMP aims to raise generation capacity to 33,000 MW of electricity by 2030. While the PSMP 2016 plan relies mainly on coal and gas, the government expects 40% to be provided by renewable energy by 2041. The Government of Bangladesh has recently scrapped 10 proposed coal-fired power plants. On the one hand, this has left a shortfall of 8,600 MW, which will need to be filled by other energy sources by 2030, including a significant scale up in renewable energy. On the other, the disused land has the potential to be used for generating energy from renewable sources and these potential sites will be assessed by our team.

Problems with land access, ownership and control pose challenges to identifying land for new large-scale investments. To address these challenges, the project will examine the national framework on private, co-ownership and public land ownership. Within the context of the national framework, we will analyse land holdings for the cancelled coal plants to accommodate solar PV park re-design investments. With limited visible action in place to advance the renewable energy agenda, these coal power plant sites present a unique opportunity to access land. Opportunities may similarly stem from other industrial and non-agricultural lands, including railway, roadway, water and seasonally inundated land, and Char lands.

[1] Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM)

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