Rooftop solar power plants for industrial units

Following the solar home system (SHS), rooftop solar system is reportedly becoming a favourite option for factories and industries. Large-scale business houses, especially textiles, jute mills and garment factories are increasingly turning to this green energy for meeting their need for electricity. While SHS with its tentative journey beginning in 1996, later on revolutionised rural electrification with its small units, a similar prospect for individual industrial power generation is likely to be in the offing. However, this was not a natural choice; rather the manufacturing units have discovered the various advantages today's large solar panels give to the buildings, on the rooftop which those are installed. The number one advantage is, of course, the production cost of power. With the rise in power tariff three times within three months, per unit (one kilowatt/hour) electricity supplied by different power distribution companies now costs Tk 9.0. This will go up further if the subsidy, as planned, is completely withdrawn from the power and energy sectors. But solar power costs Tk 5.50-6.00 per unit which is 38 per cent less.

The other advantages the solar power enjoys over fossil fuel-generated power are no less important. At a time when the world is increasingly making its option clear for green energy, this rooftop renewable solar power complies with all the regulations of producing clean energy. Again, it gives the advantage of power self-sufficiency to manufacturing units. In a country with almost assured sunshine, the advantage of owning the power producing units at a low cost cannot be overemphasised. Even in case of surplus production, it can be sold to the national power grid under the net-metering system. The Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. (IDCOL) which has mainly been responsible for advancing the SHS in the country is ready to provide all kinds of technical and maintenance supports for making the programme successful.

What acts as a further incentive to factories and industries is the financing. The IDCOL makes arrangement for 80 per cent of funds to set up rooftop solar plants on private entrepreneurs' buildings. Many residential buildings in the capital and other cities and towns have installed the system without prodding by the government or other agencies. They appreciate the numerous benefit of the system. Factories and industries did not opt for the system because earlier the panels were not as large as they are today and the higher cost of installation. Mercifully, panels are getting larger and the costs of installation are also dropping.

So, there is a meeting point of emergency need, option for green energy, improvement of rooftop solar system and falling price here. All these combine together to indicate that the solar power will be a viable option for a large number of industrial units which do not require vast quantity of power to run heavy machines. If the majority of mid-size factories and industries along with residential buildings switch to the solar power system, the pressure on grid power will ease off greatly. The undesirable prospect of load-shedding can be staved off and environmental pollution brought down to the minimum.