SOLAR MINI GRID SYSTEM:

Bangladesh is a power starving country with around 50% of the population having noaccess to gridelectricity. Extension of grid network to remote places for a countrylike Bangladesh is very expensive due to high generation and transmission cost anddue to poor load factors in rural areas. For effective usage of electricity (load factor)in rural households is less than 40%. Commerce and industry are not yet developedin the rural areas and contribution of electricity consumption from these sectors isnot expected to be high.Thus, the grid expansion, based onRE resources is expected to be slow for the next few years. However, with thegradual increase in the price of fossil fuel, the cost of generation of electricity fromsolar PV will be competitive with the cost of generation of electricity from fossilfuels.On the other hand, in rural areas there is great demand for power for meetingthe basic needs like lighting and cooling (i.e. cooling fan) of the rural household. Tohave access to electricity, People in the off-grid areas are prepared to pay a muchhigher price than the grid electricity. This opens up the opportunity to install smallsized minigrid for localized populous areas in off grid areas/villages. Suchsmall scaleprojects will provide electricity to the rural people and can contribute significantly toimprove their quality of life.