ADB helps light up more Bangladesh rural areas

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Bangladeshi government Wednesday signed a technical assistance grant agreement of 3.3 million U.S. dollars to provide more renewable energy in rural areas with no access to grid electricity.

The grant will provide 25 U.S. dollars subsidy per solar home systems (SHSs) to a total of 80,000 low-income end-users, said the Manila-based bank in a prepared statement.

The assistance will also promote biomass, biogas, and wind as alternative sources of energy, it said adding the grant will also help IDCOL, a fully Bangladeshi government owned company, improve its administrative and monitoring capacities.

According to the ADB, the grant assistance supplements a 33 million U.S. dollars subproject promoting renewable energy under the 165 million U.S. dollars Public-Private Infrastructure Development Facility project approved by ADB in 2008.

Asian Clean Energy Fund established by the Japanese government will provide 2 million U.S. dollars while ADB's Climate Change Fund will provide 1.30 million U.S. dollars to make the total grant amount of 3.3 million U.S. dollars.

Saifuddin Ahmed, Joint Secretary of Bangladesh's Economic Relations Division, Islam Sharif, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, IDCOL, and Thevakumar Kandiah, Country Director of ADB's Bangladesh Resident Mission, signed the agreements on behalf of Bangladesh, and ADB respectively, at a ceremony in captial Dhaka.

IDCOL estimates that each SHS saves at least 61.80 U.S. dollars worth of kerosene every year and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 375 kilograms (kg) annually as a result, said the ADB statement. Therefore, it said the 80,000 new SHSs to be installed through this grant assistance will bring a reduction of about 27,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

Editor: Yang Lina

English.news.cn   2011-06-29 19:22:01 FeedbackPrintRSS
DHAKA, June 29 (Xinhua)