Energy is a vital ingredient for human development in economic, social and environmental dimensions. It is an essential input to all economic activities. Energy services contribute to meet up the basic human needs like, food, cloth, shelter, education and public health. Modern Energy services can improve the environment, for example by reducing the Pollution and by slowing deforestation. But rising energy use can also worsen pollution, and mismanagement of energy resources can harm ecosystems. Thus, the relationships between energy use and human development are extremely complex.
Generally, people use energy for wider purposes, as solid power in production sector, construction, services, industries, transport and communication, and power generation, as well as for consumption sector like cooking, heating, lighting, recreation and entertainment. Thus, energy is the oxygen of any economy. The production of a modern economy fully depends on the energy availability. In spite of the growing demand of modern energy, Bangladesh is still one of the low energy consumption countries in the world. As a developing country, sufficient modern energy is crucial for the economic and health issues for the country. It is observed that per capita primary energy consumption rate in the country is still very low as accounts 205 kg of oil equivalent. In Bangladesh, about 60% of the total population has electricity access and only about 1.5 million households have natural gas connection for their energy need. Moreover, almost 90% households in Bangladesh use biomass and rest use natural gas, LPG and biogas for cooking. Only, straw, leaf and dried cow dung contributes about 51.20% of total cooking fuel and kerosene contributes almost 39.50% of total lighting energy in Bangladesh.
Household energy consumption is closely related with the economy and living standard of the country. However, there is huge gap between energy demand and supply in Bangladesh. This scenario is in acute stage in the rural areas where the people have no modern energy access. Only 20% of the people living those rural isolated areas in Bangladesh enjoy electricity facility. In addition, they have no gas connection yet. Bangladesh is a poor country where almost 53 million people live below the poverty line although the poverty declined by 19% during the last decade-and-a-half.
Therefore, people in rural areas lead a vulnerable life and unable to utilize commercial energy due to its higher price. Biomass resources such as wood, bamboo, twigs, wood shavings, sawdust, bark, roots, shell and coir of coconut, agricultural residues (paddy husk and bran, straw, jute stick) charcoal and cow dung are the main cooking energy sources used by almost 99% households in rural areas. On the other hand, kerosene and candle are the major sources used for lighting purpose. In this modern era, biomass is till the leading energy source in rural areas in Bangladesh due to poverty, lack of resources and effective energy policies. Traditional use of these biomass energy and kerosene causes hazard effects on user health and responsible for air pollution. Thus, rural people are willing to pay for switching to alternative clean energy sources like small scale biogas plant, solar home system etc. Government has already taken several initiatives to disseminate these technologies throughout the rural areas. Grammen Shakti, BRAC, RSF, Shrizony Bangladesh are the pioneer private organizations establishing these technologies to improve life standard and better health of rural populations. Moreover, the technologies are getting momentum and acceptance in rural areas.
The development stage of economic foundation of a country determines the type of energy sources the inhabitants consume. The patterns of energy consumption in the country have an impact on the welfare of consumer. Today there is a mounting argument that poverty reduction and development programs have to be reliant on universal access to energy services that are affordable and reliable good quantity. The state of poverty affects the ability of people to purchase the type and quantity of energy and improving the energy consumption pattern that could benefit their living standard and health.
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According to the World Bank, Bangladesh is categorized as a lower-middle income country with a GDP per capita of $1610 in 2017. Rapid urbanization fueled by stable economic growth has created a huge demand of energy. Bangladesh has attained development with a relatively low per capita energy consumption compared to many other countries. Electricity is the major source of power for most of the country's economic activities, but there are problems in the Bangladesh's electric power sector include, high system losses, delays in completion of new plants, low plant efficiency, erratic power supply, electricity theft, blackouts, and shortages of funds for power plant maintenance. Overall, the country's generation plants have been unable to meet system demand over the past decade. This is shown on the country's wood supply; such has been declining at a faster rate to the point where it could not be able to accommodate the fuel demand of the country.
Bangladesh has one of the lowest per capita energy consumption for the same per capita GDP of developed countries. It can be seen that Bangladesh is producing more with less energy compared to these higher income countries. So, Bangladesh has the potential to do better and achieve higher economic growth if the energy supply can be ensured. For doing this, energy policies for the country should ensure affordable and environmentally friendly source of electrical energy for the people. However, since its independence from Pakistan in 1971, the country has struggled to generate adequate electricity to meet the demand. The state-owned electricity utilities suffer from large energy shortages. Moreover, due to poor pricing policies and other bottlenecks, the energy sector has also failed to attract adequate private investments in power business. The shortage of investment is a contributing factor toward energy crisis.
Therefore, access to energy is becoming a survival question for most of the households in rural areas of Bangladesh. In order to keep clean our environment and survive our society by producing sufficient food, both government and private policy makers should look forward to generate new energy sources. For drawing efficient policies in boosting energy production and consumption in rural Bangladesh, it is necessary to conduct comprehensive research on the particular issue.