Power conservation
A local English daily devoted a four page section on Power Generation issues (Sept:29). Unfortunately, the major drawback was that none of the lead articles contained anything about power conservation--the key top priority issue for Bangladesh reeling under power shortage! If power conservation issue is positively followed up by our government; then we can easily save over 100MW every year for at least the next ten years or so.
Additionally, if the use of solar panels, bio-gas generation, and power conservation is orchestrated together as a determined government policy backed by a vigorous implementation drive, we could well save and provide an additional 1000MW in three years at most! this is equivalent to setting up two 500MW power plants; with no large scale financial one time investment. Possibly taka five crore over three years will give us at least 500MW of available power to the grid! If we concentrate on this effort in the five cities of Bangladesh: Dhaka, Chittagong; Khulna, Rajshahi and Sylhet and the industrial estates; the saving could easily exceed 300MW!
The beauty of power conservation is that it saves power in the house and offices where electrical gadgets are used, and in illumination and electrical drives in factories; unit by unit as funds permit. All that is needed is government's determination, backed by financial incentive for industries to upgrade the existing drive motors with energy efficient motors. To get large scale savings, we should concentrate on pulp and paper mills, cement manufacturing and grinding factories, each of which on an average may be consuming around 25MW, as the first step.
For permanent savings, we can easily identify and restrict ourselves to using "energy efficient" electrical gadgets in the homes and offices like computers, window air conditioners, fans, office copiers and hospital equipment. BUET can easily identify the energy efficient models of these products now openly imported. To discourage other models, the government can slap a prohibitive "energy surcharge" on these! This will ensure a permanent power saving for all time to come!
South Africa, a pioneer on power conservation, did this, may be well over twenty years back! Their twenty years' cumulative savings till mid 1990s were 4255MW! This is more than what Bangladesh generates today! Their annual saving through conservation is between 100 to 250MW; and the drive still continues; though by and large it has become an effective state policy. Power conservation must be our topmost priority. It needs practically very little investment compared to the power saved!
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