Energy efficiency and energy security
The country has been facing a severe electricity and gas crisis for several years now. The last government including the caretaker government made the problem worse through inactivity. Of course, the caretaker government was severely restricted in implementing new projects due to lack of a mandate. The present government came to power with the promise of an end to the crisis and a ‘loadshedding-free Bangladesh’. After four years of the present government, what do we see – an immediate crisis partly mitigated by the use of expensive oil-fired rental power plants, very little progress in the construction of efficient power plants, no effort in retiring highly inefficient power plants, little progress in building coal-fired power plants and very little addition to our gas reserves. These all add up to portray a dismal picture of our energy future. Thus all governments have been failing to tackle the real issues confronting the power and gas sectors.
The traditional mentality of developing country energy planners has always been to increase generation to meet demand. Crisis has always been looked upon as a shortfall in generation capacity. Issues such as poor management, wrong planning, slow implementation, and most importantly, the efficiency of the power infrastructure and demand side energy management have never been given due importance. That energy efficiency can deliver huge benefits by lowering fossil fuel (oil, gas and coal) consumption, enhance energy security and help build a sustainable energy system has been poorly understood by Bangladeshi planners. Energy experts and analysts have been harping about the virtues of 'energy efficiency’ for a long time, but the snail pace of the government’s efforts have left them frustrated.
Energy efficiency is looked upon these days not only as the fourth fuel after oil, gas, and coal but also as a powerful 'climate change greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation' measure. It is nowadays considered to be the foundation of ‘sustainable energy’. This realisation has prompted the EU to include it in a priority list alongside Rainwater Harvesting and Renewable Energy.
Several studies clearly show that up to 50 percent energy savings are possible in some applications, and 25 percent total savings is possibly in the year 2030. The savings is equivalent to the total energy consumed in Bangladesh in 2005. The Second National Communication – the compulsory reporting to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on GHG Inventory and Mitigation – conducted by the MoEF has shown that old gas-based steam power plants and the urea fertiliser plants have the highest energy efficiency improvement potential because these are in the worst condition. In the private industries, most of the gas-fired boilers are old and inefficient, and waste heat from captive generators is mostly not utilised. The electric motors we import especially from China and India are of inferior specification. Additionally, when motors burn out, these are rewound in roadside workshops, a practice which leads to further lowering in efficiency.
Barriers to Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency in Bangladesh faces huge challenges because of the propensity to purchase the cheapest devices/equipment and pilferage of electricity/gas. This tendency to opt for the lowest first-cost option has been widely focused, but not much in way of remedy has been suggested. To take an example, cheap gas turbines in many cases have efficiencies that are 8-10 percent lower than those of the state-of-the-art. The concept of life-cycle costing, which evaluates an option from its production to ultimate disposal, is by and large an unknown concept in developing countries. Public procurement rules are heavily biased towards the least first-cost option, and there is no mechanism to evaluate a project on a life-cycle basis. The practice not only leads to more costly electricity, but also results in more CO2 emission per unit (kWh) of electricity. This is a real problem, and one that developing countries cannot by themselves solve because they simply do not have the funds. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol could have been ideal for such projects, but in its present form CDM is too cumbersome, and for energy projects, the financial benefits from CERs is too small, being in the region of 5 to 10 percent of the initial investment.
Pilferage of electricity is a big problem in Bangladesh. It is often said that it is cheaper to pilfer electricity or gas than to practice energy efficiency. A strict regime of monitoring and penalty is required to tackle this problem. As soon as energy costs start hurting, users would look for ways to reduce their bills. Thus strict monitoring of pilferage is essential in forcing consumers towards energy efficiency. The government claims that system loss has been greatly reduced. In percentage terms this may be so, but in terms of money it has actually increased. The reason is simple – when the distribution loss was higher the total electricity sold and the tariff was much lower.
Power and Fertiliser Plants
Power generation can be a significant area for energy efficiency (EE) improvement in Bangladesh. The problem with the BPDB's existing generation capacity is that nearly 50 percent of the gas based generation uses the sub-critical stream turbine (ST) technology, which has a maximum efficiency of 38 percent. The ST power plants now being operated by BPDB have an average efficiency of approximately 30 percent, and at least half of that capacity is more than 20 years old. The gas turbines, which are supposed to be peaking plants, are often used as baseload, and the average efficiency is less
than 25 percent. With the serious ongoing power crisis, it is unlikely that BPDB will retire any of these old and inefficient power plants. The obvious choice for baseload power is the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) technology, the efficiency of which is approaching 60 percent, with 52 percent being standard.
A World Bank-GTZ study on energy efficiency has shown that as much as 7 percent of the total gas can be saved if new Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) power plants for baseload and state-of-the-art gas turbines for peaking can be constructed by replacing old and inefficient power plants. Even rehabilitating old power plants can save 2-3 percent of the total supplied gas.
The urea fertiliser plants of BCIC are all consuming much more gas than their design values. In 2009-10, the fertiliser sector consumed 9 percent of the total natural gas sold in the country. All the fertiliser factories in Bangladesh are more than 20 years old. Replacing these old plants with modern efficient ones can increase urea production by 60 percent. Alternatively the saved gas can be used in a 500 MW CCGT power plant. For the production of one tonne of urea, four plants (NGFF, PUFF, UFFL, ZFCL) consume more than 40 Mcf of natural gas, compared to 23 Mcf by KAFCO (foreign owned).
Cogeneration
More than 1200 MW of captive electricity is generated in industries at an average efficiency of 35 percent. In 90 percent of the cases the waste heat from the generator is not utilised. Cogeneration or Combined Heat and Power (CHP) can be a tremendous option for saving a huge quantity of natural gas now used in boilers. The required retrofit for a CHP plant is the addition of a simple waste heat boiler to the exhaust of the generator. If an average of 2 MW per installation is assumed, then there are more than 600 industries that generate their own electricity using gas engines. Many of these industrial installations require steam, which they generate using gas. On their own initiative more than 50 industrial units have installed waste heat boilers. Janata Jute Mills in Ghorasal was one of the first to take advantage of cogeneration nearly eight years back. The exhaust from a 1 MW gas engine generator is being used to produce one tonne of steam per hour. The waste heat boiler was purchased from India at a cost of Tk 80,00,000 and the annual savings in gas costs is Tk 22,00,000.
Managing Cooling Load
The cooling load in Bangladesh is becoming a matter of great concern. The difference in power load between high summer and deep winter is as much as 1500 MW, implying that the cooling load is probably more than 2000 MW. With growing prosperity and enhanced commercial activity the cooling load in increasing at a very high rate, but no attention is being focused to properly manage this load. In cold western countries where space heating is required the government, through building codes and standards, has forced building owners to implement energy efficiency measures. Anyone who has lived in these countries has certainly noticed that windows are double-glazed, walls are properly insulated, doors seal properly, and the entire house is thermostatically controlled.
Using the best technologies and management practices available today, we can reduce our primary energy consumption considerably. Several reports by BUET experts have conclusively demonstrated that. The real question is where will the funds come from? We have to decide what gives the bigger economic benefit – do nothing, i.e., wasting our gas or using scarce funds to buy efficient technology? Clearly it should be investment in efficient technology because almost all energy efficiency investments pay off in 2-4 years from the savings in energy. A major portion of this investment can be passed on to consumers as mandatory Demand Side Management. My firm belief is that we will never achieve energy self-sufficiency unless we exploit fully the energy efficiency potentials. As a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol and as a Climate Change vulnerable country we can seek support from richer nations in our efforts to embrace very strongly the concepts of energy efficiency.
The government is finally waking up, and work is underway towards enacting an energy conservation and efficiency act. A powerful entity called Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA) has also been approved. When SDEDA is functional, Bangladesh will be able to put serious emphasis on energy efficiency. It is expected that through this act and authority the following will be achieved:
• Standardisation and labeling of widely used consumer products such as refrigerators, room air-conditioners, ceiling fans, etc.
• Efficiency standards for boilers and motors.
• Mandatory energy audit and efficiency improvement programs in large industries including power plants and transmission and distribution infrastructure.
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The writer is an energy expert and Professor of Chemical Energy, BUET.
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