Bangladesh plans to require mandatory installation of rooftop photovoltaics in new large buildings
According to foreign media reports, Bangladesh has recently issued a new regulation that requires new buildings with a roof area exceeding 92.2 square meters to install a rooftop photovoltaic system as a prerequisite for grid connection.
It is foreseeable that the installed capacity of rooftop photovoltaic systems in Bangladesh will significantly increase, as the government requires the installation of photovoltaic systems in newly built residential, educational, medical, industrial, and commercial buildings as a prerequisite for connecting to the power grid.
For buildings with a roof area exceeding 92.2 square meters, a net metered photovoltaic system must be installed. Owners seeking single-phase grid connection must install a net metering photovoltaic system with an installed capacity of over 1kW, while those who require three-phase grid connection must meet the requirement of an installed capacity of 3kW. The same regulations also apply to schools, hospitals, and charitable organizations with a rooftop space of over 1000 square feet.
In addition, this regulation stipulates that industrial and commercial customers with loads below 80kW must install rooftop photovoltaic systems with an installed capacity equivalent to 15% of their total load, customers with loads between 80kW and 500kW must install photovoltaic systems that account for 12% of their load capacity, and customers with loads exceeding 500kW must install rooftop photovoltaic systems that account for 10% of their load capacity.
In addition, existing buildings that wish to improve the grid connection load capacity must comply with the same rules by installing additional rooftop photovoltaic systems. Dipal C. Barua, former chairman and current advisor of the Bangladesh Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Association, stated that this new measure has received strong support.
He said, "Bangladesh will now add hundreds of megawatts of rooftop photovoltaic systems every year and need to be connected to the power grid, so relevant regulations must be . Therefore, implementing mandatory net metering photovoltaic system regulations will be relatively easy.
Barua stated that Bangladesh builds approximately 40000 new homes annually, and if an average of 2kW rooftop photovoltaic system is installed in each house, it will provide approximately 80MW of electricity. He also pointed out that industrial and commercial buildings that require a large amount of electricity load will install larger rooftop photovoltaic systems, which will further increase photovoltaic power generation.
The cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic systems in Bangladesh to date is 1194.63MW. Among them, 84.83MW comes from the rooftop photovoltaic system, while 70.301MW comes from the ground mounted photovoltaic system.
