Dhaka: Tanzania wants to use Bangladesh's experience in the renewable energy sector, particularly the solar home system (SHS) programme that has acclaimed global appreciation as the single largest programme in the world.

A 12-member delegation of Tanzania and Germany is now visiting Bangladesh to see for themselves the successes in different solar projects, including SHSs, solar-based irrigation pump and solar mini-grid.

Nine of the 12-member delegation members are from Tanzania while three from Germany. The Tanzanian side includes three members of parliament–one from the ruling and two from opposition parties.

World Future Council (WFC), a German-based global promotional body of renewable energy, in partnership with Brot and CAN Tanzania, is organising the tour.

Bright Green Energy Foundation, which is hosting the delegation's visit, organised a day-long experience sharing workshop titled ‘100pc Renewable Energy Transferable Lessons from Bangladesh to Tanzania’ for the delegation members at a city hotel on Tuesday.

WFC representative Anna Leidreiter told UNB that both Tanzania and Germany have huge interest in learning about the success stories of Bangladesh in the renewable energy, particularly the solar home systems.

She said Bangladesh has made a tremendous success through the SHSs which now has been the single largest solar home programme across the globe. Around 4 million solar home systems have already been installed in rural areas of Bangladesh.

Currently, Tanzania generates about 1,560 MW of power, where 7 percent people in urban area and 4.9 percent people in rural area have access to electricity.

Addressing the workshop as the chief guest, Prime Minister's Energy Adviser Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury said Tanzania has huge potentials of renewable energy as the country is 9 times bigger than Bangladesh, but its population is one-thirds of Bangladesh.

‘The African nation has huge renewable energy potentials as it has vast abandoned land for setting up solar panels which Bangladesh doesn't have,’ he said welcoming the Tanzanian and German delegation to gather Bangladesh’s experience in the field.

He advised the state-owned financing agency IDCOL, which financed to promote SHS programme, to provide advisory services to Tanzania.

IDCOL chief executive officer Mahmood Malik informed that his organisation has been working in nine African countries. ‘Now, IDCOL is ready to operate in Tanzania,’ he said.

He said the IDCOL partner organisations play a vital role in making the SHS programme a success as they implement the scheme at the field level.

Formanul Islam, chief executive officer of another state-owned financing agency BIFFL who earlier served the IDCOL, shared his experience saying maintaining standards has been one of the biggest challenges for any solar programme.

‘Sometimes substandard solar products at cheaper rates distort the market destroying the trust of the common people who don't have any mechanism to check the quality of a product,’ he said.

Held with BGFF chairman Dipal C Barua in the chair, the function was also addressed by chairman of Bangladesh Sustainable and Renewable Energy Authority (Sreda) Anwarul Islam Sikder, senior vice president of Bangladesh Solar and Renewable Energy Association Munawar M Moin, Director of International Centre for Climate Change and Development Saleemul Huq and Sreda member Siddique Zobair.