State Minister for Power and Energy Nasrul Hamid has said there are two major challenges to promoting renewable energy, particularly the solar home system (SHS) across the country.

‘High price of solar panels and recycling of lead batteries used in 3.5 million SHS are the challenges,’ he said, addressing a workshop on ‘Development of Sustainable Renewable Energy Power Generation (SREPGen), at Bidyut Bhaban in the city on Thursday.

Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (Sreda), in association with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), organised the workshop with Sreda chairman Tapos Kumar Roy in the chair.

Power Secretary Monwar Islam, UNDP country director Pauline Tamesis and Sreda member Siddique Zobair also spoke at the workshop.

Nasrul Hamid said that about 60,000 SHS are being installed every month in off-grid rural areas. It's a big question that the people do not know whether these panels are efficient or not.

‘But people are using these panels as these are changing their lifestyle very fast in different ways like it connects them with the rest of the world as they could watch TV.’   

He said that when the batteries go out people do not know how to recycle them. They just throw such batteries in the rivers, which finally pollute them.

The junior minister said the government has created Sreda as functional regulating body for development and control of the renewable energy sector. ‘So, Sreda has to control the quality of the panels.’

The price of renewable energy is still high although the new technologies are coming up, he added.

Nasrul Hamid said the government is thinking of using clean coal for power generation using the best technology and also share the energy with the neighbouring countries so that a balance is created in the power production.

Power secretary Monwal Islam said that the government is laying emphasis on generation of renewable energy and producing power through the use of clean coal as part of its vision to become a middle income country.

He urged the officials to think about the use of school rooftops for solar panel installation across the country.