[🇧🇩] Energy Security of Bangladesh

[Saif]

Power efficiency before expansion

THE power sector presents a difficult paradox. Over 15 years, Bangladesh has significantly expanded its electricity generation capacity, reaching 27,414 megawatts by June 2025 through billions of takas in public spending. On paper, the figures suggest progress and ambition. Yet, beneath the...

www.newagebd.net

Power efficiency before expansion

Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant. | Wikipedia

THE power sector presents a difficult paradox. Over 15 years, Bangladesh has significantly expanded its electricity generation capacity, reaching 27,414 megawatts by June 2025 through billions of takas in public spending. On paper, the figures suggest progress and ambition. Yet, beneath the impressive statistics lies a deeper institutional and structural failure that policymakers can no longer afford to ignore.

The crisis is not simply about how much electricity Bangladesh can generate, but about how much electricity disappears before it even reaches consumers. The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission has set a benchmark of 2 per cent for system loss, yet actual losses remain far above that limit. According to the Bangladesh Power Development Board, the overall transmission and distribution system loss stood at 10.13 per cent in 2024-25, while distribution loss alone reached 6.68 per cent. These are not minor technical irregularities. They reflect a persistent governance failure that continues to drain public resources while weakening the reliability of the power system itself.

Overcapacity, underpayment

THE financial implications of this crisis are becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Bangladesh’s power sector is currently operating with nearly 40per cent overcapacity, far above the internationally accepted reserve margin of around 8–10per cent. In 2024–25, peak generation reached only 16,603MW against an installed capacity of 27,414MW, leaving almost 11,000MW sitting unused.

Yet, instead of gradually phasing out idle quick rental power plants, successive governments continued signing contracts for new plants, including additional rental-based generation. The result has been mounting financial pressure on the Bangladesh Power Development Board. The board’s net loss rose to Tk 17,021 crore in the 2024–25 financial year, almost double the loss recorded the previous year. Much of this burden comes from capacity charge payments made to private producers even when plants remain idle. Public money is being spent not only on electricity generation, but also on maintaining unused infrastructure that contributes little to solving the country’s actual energy problems.

At the same time, the country’s distribution infrastructure remains severely outdated. Ageing transformers, inadequate transmission networks, faulty metering systems, and widespread illegal connections continue to weaken grid stability. In practical terms, Bangladesh is paying twice for electricity: once to produce it, and again through losses that generate no economic return.

Economic, social consequences

THE consequences of energy inefficiency extend well beyond the power sector itself. International climate finance institutions such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Green Climate Fund are increasingly linking concessional financing to measurable improvements in energy transition and efficiency. Bangladesh’s inability to reduce system loss weakens its credibility as a reliable borrower at a time when global competition for green financing is intensifying. Other developing economies are already improving grid efficiency and strengthening accountability mechanisms to secure long-term climate investment.

The economic impact is also visible domestically. Despite surplus installed capacity, industries and households continue to face recurring load-shedding and supply disruptions. For manufacturers, unreliable electricity raises production costs and undermines investor confidence in Bangladesh’s industrial sector. For ordinary citizens, especially lower-income households, the burden appears in the form of rising tariffs and declining service quality. The Tk 17,021 crore loss accumulated by the power board does not disappear in isolation; ultimately, the public bears the cost.

System loss also sustains a broader culture of institutional weakness. Illegal connections thrive where enforcement is weak, billing discipline collapses where accountability is absent, and corruption becomes embedded within distribution networks when theft is tolerated for years without consequence. In that sense, the crisis is not merely technical or financial. It reflects the gradual erosion of governance standards within the energy sector.

Arithmetic of efficiency

THE economic logic behind reform is straightforward. Reducing system loss is significantly cheaper than continuously expanding generation capacity. Even a 1 per cent nationwide reduction in transmission and distribution loss can create the equivalent practical benefit of adding hundreds of megawatts of usable electricity to the grid.

Bangladesh’s peak electricity demand in 2025 was approximately 17,000MW. If system loss could be reduced from 10.13 per cent to the 2 per cent benchmark set by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, the amount of electricity saved would be enough to serve millions of additional households without constructing a single new power plant.

This is where investment priorities require urgent reconsideration. Grid modernisation through smart metering, transformer replacement, underground cabling in urban areas, and automated distribution management systems can deliver measurable benefits within a relatively short time. According to the USAID South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy Integration, investment in reducing system loss can produce five to eight times more usable electricity per unit cost compared to equivalent investment in new generation capacity.

Yet Bangladesh’s policy focus continues to revolve around adding the next megawatt of generation while the system quietly loses vast amounts of electricity every day through inefficiency, theft and weak infrastructure.

Urgent reforms

BANGLADESH cannot stabilise its power sector simply by building more plants. The immediate priority must shift towards governance reform, infrastructure efficiency, and accountability. Several policy interventions deserve urgent attention.

First, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission must move beyond merely setting system loss thresholds and begin enforcing them rigorously. Distribution utilities that consistently exceed the benchmark should face automatic penalties, while quarterly public reporting should become mandatory. Transparency is essential if accountability is to mean anything in practice.

Second, the government should establish a dedicated enforcement unit under the power, energy and mineral resources ministry with legal authority to investigate electricity and gas theft. Mobile court operations, led by trained officers working under energy law, could target large-scale illegal connections across distribution zones. Enforcement alone will not solve the problem, but when theft carries real legal and financial consequences, the incentives sustaining illegal networks begin to weaken.

Third, Bangladesh should expand prepaid and smart metering systems beyond Dhaka into secondary towns and rural growth centres through co-financing arrangements with international lenders. Smart metering not only reduces theft but also improves billing efficiency and monitoring capacity.

Fourth, the government should impose a temporary suspension on new capacity contracts until plant utilisation rates improve substantially. With existing plants operating well below capacity, further expansion should require parliamentary review and a clear demonstration that demand cannot be met through efficiency improvements alone.

Finally, capacity charge agreements with private producers require revision. Payments should depend not simply on idle availability, but also on operational performance, efficiency standards, and maintenance reliability. Otherwise, the state will continue rewarding underutilised infrastructure at enormous public expense.

Bangladesh does not fundamentally suffer from a power generation shortage. It suffers from a governance and infrastructure crisis within the energy sector. Continuing to spend billions on new power plants while system losses remain alarmingly high represents a poor use of public resources.

The country cannot keep pouring water into a leaking bucket and call it progress. The lights will stay on not because Bangladesh builds endlessly at the top, but because it finally repairs what is broken underneath.

For policymakers, the real question is no longer ambition versus caution. It is whether development is producing genuine efficiency and public benefit, or merely the appearance of progress through increasingly unsustainable spending.

Abrar Azizul Hasan Buhiyan is an undergraduate teaching assistant at the economics department in the North South University.​

 

[Saif]

Power tariff hikes for lifeline users annulled

The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday annulled its decisions of hiking retail power tariffs for two bottom-placed household consumers, according to officials of the Power Division.

www.newagebd.net

Power tariff hikes for lifeline users annulled
Staff Correspondent 04 June, 2026, 19:11

Representational image | Collected photo

The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday annulled its decisions of hiking retail power tariffs for two bottom-placed household consumers, according to officials of the Power Division.

The regulatory body revised the decision a day after it stipulated that the lifeline consumers using up to 50 units would pay Tk 5.32 per one kWh of electricity in place of the previous Tk 4.63 per one kWh.

The BERC also decided to impose Tk 6.18kWh power tariff instead of the previous Tk 5.26kWh for consumers using up to 75 units, falling under the first slab of the seven categories of household clients.

Acting on a recommendation earlier on the day by the Energy Division amid criticisms from economists and rights groups on power tariff hikes, the BERC took the new decisions of keeping rates unchanged for the bottom-placed consumers.

A press release issued by the Energy Division in this connection also said that the government would compensate losses by the power distributing companies because of the new decisions.

On the same ground, the retail power tariff on weighted average will now stand at Tk 10.40kWh in place of the previous Tk 10.63kWh, added the Energy Division.​

 

[Saif]

Can Bangladesh achieve energy sovereignty?

Bangladesh stands at a critical developmental crossroads, paralysed by an acute and systemic energy crisis. Recent global shortages in fossil fuels have exposed the severe vulnerabilities of the nation’s energy architecture.

www.thedailystar.net

Can Bangladesh achieve energy sovereignty?

Chowdhury F. Rahim

Bangladesh stands at a critical developmental crossroads, paralysed by an acute and systemic energy crisis. Recent global shortages in fossil fuels have exposed the severe vulnerabilities of the nation’s energy architecture. Across urban and rural centres, gasoline-reliant vehicles and autorickshaws endure queues lasting 12 hours or more just to purchase a few litres of fuel, stripping drivers of their daily livelihoods. Simultaneously, the vital ready-made garment sector, the backbone of the national export economy, is suffering widespread factory closures due to intense electrical power cycling. For most of these facilities, domestic backup power sources are either nonexistent or financially ruinous due to the soaring costs of diesel and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

To break this cycle of economic volatility, Bangladesh must urgently transition away from fossil fuels and cultivate a diversified, self-reliant power-generation strategy. While the newly elected government has announced a commendable goal to generate 10,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources by 2030, the physical realities of the country’s climate and geography present severe headwinds to achieving this target through traditional renewables alone.

The realities and limitations of renewable energy

While alternative energy paths are essential, mass-scale reliance on solar and wind power face structural obstacles within Bangladesh’s unique deltaic environment:

● Thermal losses and solar degradation: Commercial solar cells operate at a base efficiency of only 10% to 15%, a metric calibrated for moderate temperatures around 27°C. During Bangladeshi summers, temperatures frequently exceed 35°C, triggering severe thermal losses that degrade cell efficiency.

● Seasonal intermittency: Bangladesh’s intense rainy season spans 30% to 45% of the calendar year, a prolonged period during which solar arrays fail to generate significant grid power. Currently, solar power accounts for only 2.3% of the total national grid supply.

● High capital expenditure for wind turbines: Wind power has a theoretical potential of at least 30 gigawatts (GW) across the delta. However, the nation’s installed capacity languishes at just 66 megawatts (MW), representing a negligible portion of generated power. This stagnation is driven by high capital expenditures of $1,900 to $2,100 per kilowatt (KW), alongside unfavourable localised wind patterns, extreme cyclone exposure, and bureaucratic regulatory bottlenecks.

● The peak load mismatch: The most profound flaw of solar and wind installations is their inability to serve the nation’s peak operational needs. Solar energy is unavailable at night, precisely when industrial demand peaks during the garment sector’s high-output period. Wind patterns remain unpredictable outside localised coastal zones, such as the 22-turbine Cox’s Bazar Wind Power Project developed via Chinese investment.

To overcome these limitations, both technologies require massive, cost-prohibitive electrical storage facilities that demand large tracts of real estate, a luxury that a highly congested nation cannot afford.

Traditional large-scale nuclear power and the Rooppur bottleneck

While alternate energy paths are essential, mass-scale reliance on solar and wind power faces structural obstacles within Bangladesh’s unique deltaic environment. Visual: Rehnuma Proshoon

Faced with these land and atmospheric constraints, Bangladesh has turned to nuclear energy as a sustainable, low-carbon, zero-emission baseload source. The nation is on the verge of becoming the third country in the subcontinent to deploy nuclear power as the Rooppur Nuclear Plant nears operational status. Once both Rooppur I and II become operational—projected for 2028—they will inject a vital 10% baseload supply into the National Grid.

However, the Rooppur project highlights the immense vulnerabilities inherent to traditional, large-scale Gen-III pressurised water reactors.

Financial and timeline overruns: Exacerbated by geopolitical disruptions such as the war in Ukraine, the project has suffered a minimum 5-year delay beyond its original 2022 completion target. This has inflated initial feasibility budgets, with current estimates projecting the final cost to exceed $20 billion once interest is factored in.

Spatial inefficiency: Traditional plants require sprawling territories; the Rooppur complex alone occupies 4.3 square kilometres (1,962 acres) of premium land. A similar project in any other place would inevitably result in the eviction of many people, which is undesirable.

High-volume water dependencies: The Rooppur plant’s water-cooled design requires a staggering 455,000 gallons of cooling water per minute, continuously drawn from the Padma River. Because India controls the upstream flow via the Farakka Barrage, summer diversions could reduce river levels to critical lows. A subsequent “loss of coolant” event introduces the catastrophic risk of a core meltdown, mirroring the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Sovereign and fuel dependencies: Bangladesh is heavily reliant on Russian entities for the supply of fuel rods, initial operations, maintenance, and nuclear waste management. Without a rapid transfer of technical expertise to local engineers, the plant risks long-term unprofitability and strategic vulnerability.

With national demand projected to skyrocket to 60,000 MW by 2041, Rooppur alone cannot solve the energy deficit. Bangladesh cannot simply replicate these massive, decades-long mega-projects elsewhere. Instead, it must look toward decentralised, innovative alternatives, such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

The SMR and HTR-PM revolution: Safer by design

High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor-Pebble Bed Module (HTR-PM) technology represents a paradigm shift in nuclear engineering. Rooted in historical German AVR and THTR-300 architectures from 1969–1980, this Gen-IV technology was initially sidelined by Western nations following high-profile disasters like Three Mile Island, Chornobyl, and Fukushima. However, researchers in China systematically analysed those historical failures to pioneer a modern, inherently safe reactor variant that completely redefines nuclear security and efficiency. The safety and operational advantages of HTR-PM reactors over traditional plants are profound:

Inherent meltdown immunity: Unlike conventional reactors that utilise high-pressure water and vulnerable fuel rods, HTR-PM reactors rely entirely on passive physics and material properties. The nuclear fuel is encased in multilayer ceramic shells to form tennis-ball-sized pellets, which are then enclosed in pyrolytic graphite moderators. These pebbles withstand extreme temperatures exceeding 1,600°C without degrading, operating safely above the reactor’s standard 650°C to 700°C thresholds.

Passive heat dissipation: The reactor core features an exceptionally large surface-to-volume ratio, allowing decay heat to escape naturally faster than it can be generated. Furthermore, the physics of the core dictates that the nuclear chain reaction automatically slows down and drops to safe levels as temperatures rise. Chinese engineers demonstrated this at the commercial-scale Shidaowan Nuclear Plant in Shandong, proving that, under simulated total failure, the reactor safely cooled itself to a stable temperature within 40 hours without any human intervention or backup power.

Radical footprint reduction: An HTR-PM facility requires only one-tenth of the land area of a conventional plant like Rooppur. This compact nature makes it possible to deploy them near high-density urban populations, industrial zones, river ports, or even aboard medium-sized ships.

Eradication of water reliance: Because these reactors utilise gas or salt coolants rather than open-loop river water, Bangladesh can break free from geopolitical dependencies on neighbouring nations regarding transboundary river flows.

Technical coolant dilemmas and global alternatives

While the benefits are clear, deploying SMR technology requires evaluating competing international cooling methodologies, each presenting distinct engineering trade-offs:


1. High-pressure inert helium gas

Pioneered by China’s Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) at Tsinghua University, this method is deployed commercially at the Shidaowan project. Helium does not react with neutrons or corrode the internal reactor shell, making it exceptionally safe. However, helium is expensive, is commercially controlled by a few nations, and presents mechanical challenges due to the high operating pressures required. Using cheaper alternatives, such as carbon dioxide, causes long-term structural degradation of the graphite core, while nitrogen reacts to form toxic gases.

2. Molten fluoride salts (FHR)

Advocated by companies like Kairos Power in the United States, molten fluoride salt heat reactors (FHR) operate at low, nominal pressures around 650°C. Because the salt vaporises above 1,400°C, the liquid state eliminates any risk of a high-pressure gas explosion. However, molten salts are highly corrosive and will destroy standard metal alloys, requiring advanced nickel-based structural metals. Furthermore, Kairos has yet to demonstrate a commercial-scale project, making it an unproven option for meeting Bangladesh’s immediate cost objectives.

3. Liquid sodium pools (Natrium)

Developed by Bill Gates’ company, TerraPower, this architecture submerges the nuclear core in a pool of liquid sodium. TerraPower is constructing a flagship facility in Wyoming, USA, though it will be several years before real-world operational data can be compared against China’s established commercial track record.

Domestic barriers: The crisis of the national grid

Even if Bangladesh acquires the world’s most advanced modular reactors, the technology will fail to rescue the energy sector unless the state addresses its broken domestic distribution network. While successive political administrations have steadily expanded electricity generation capacity, the national transmission infrastructure has lagged far behind, creating a severe bottleneck.

The critical nature of this bottleneck is visible today: as the Rooppur plant prepares to come online, the essential transmission lines required to transfer its power to Dhaka and major industrial centres via the national grid are not ready. Furthermore, the grid lacks modern automation and a “smart grid” system. In the past, single substation trips have caused cascading domino failures across the country because the grid could not manage sudden surges or drops in demand.

Major load centers in Dhaka and Chattogram are frequently overloaded and operate at their absolute thermal limits. For modular distributed power to succeed, grid modernisation must be legally and operationally synchronised with reactor deployment.

Economic evaluation and geopolitical navigation

Financially, the choice between international SMR options reveals a steep divide in capital efficiency:

● The Shidaowan HTR-PM model: China’s scaled-up six-reactor design (HTR-PM600) achieves a net capacity of 600 MWe for an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. This translates to an optimal cost of roughly $2,500 per KW, making it highly competitive with traditional fossil-fuel plants.

● The TerraPower Natrium model: The U.S. alternative carries a staggering $4.0 billion price tag for a lower capacity of 345 MWe, resulting in a substantially higher cost per kilowatt. The following projects can become more cost-effective.

From a purely financial standpoint, the Chinese architecture is vastly superior for a developing economy. However, procurement is complicated by geopolitical policy. A recent reciprocal trade agreement between Bangladesh and the United States reportedly seeks to bar the purchase of nuclear technology from “non-market economies” like China. Violating this agreement could trigger severe retaliatory tariffs on Bangladesh’s vital clothing exports.

To navigate this geopolitical minefield, Bangladesh has three strategic pathways:

1. Negotiate a U.S. waiver: Formally petition the United States on the grounds that civilian pebble-bed architecture has no military application and is not built commercially by Western nations.

2. Deploy American SMRs: Partner directly with Bill Gates’ TerraPower group to build local engineering proficiency through Western-approved channels.

3. Partner with Indonesia: Collaborate with Indonesia, which has launched a 40MW thermal fourth-generation HTR-PM reactor and successfully built fuel pellets, allowing Bangladesh to procure the IP and technical channels while bypassing direct Western trade barriers.

Policy recommendations

As the 2023 IEEE President, Prof. Saifur Rahman noted, achieving deep carbon reductions and self-reliance over the next quarter-century is fundamentally impossible without nuclear power, given the spatial limitations of solar and wind energy. Distributed SMR networks offer the ideal blueprint for Bangladesh’s future, balancing intermittent fields by functioning as massive thermal batteries. When solar and wind power are active during the day, the HTR-PM system can store excess heat in its molten salt beds, releasing it to steam turbines during peak night hours when manufacturing sectors need it most.

To realise this vision within the next decade, the Government of Bangladesh must immediately implement a tripartite policy framework:

1. Academic mobilisation: Establish targeted nuclear engineering programs at BUET and other Universities of Engineering and Technology (UETs) to build a domestic workforce of several hundred specialised engineers within five years.

2. Diplomatic orientation: Actively pursue the architectural waiver from the U.S. while simultaneously initiating technology transfer talks with Indonesian and American private nuclear firms.

3. Unified infrastructure mandate: Legally bind all future power generation approvals to mandatory, synchronised upgrades of the national automated smart grid.

By moving deliberately, resolving the grid bottleneck, and embracing distributed fourth-generation nuclear technology, Bangladesh can secure a clean, resilient, and sovereign energy solvent status for the 21st century.

Chowdhury F. Rahim is a distinguished electrical engineer and semiconductor pioneer with over four decades of innovation.​