Exploring adoption of renewable energy technology (RET) among apparel exporters in Bangladesh: Policy landscape, current capacities, and future pathways

Authors
Atonu Rabbani

The apparel sector is the largest manufacturing sector in Bangladesh, contributing to more than 80% of the country’s export earnings. Under the auspices of UNFCCC, the stakeholders from the global fashion industry have created a charter for climate action to work towards net-zero emissions within the fashion sector by 2050. The industry’s association in the country, BGMEA, is a signatory to this charter and aims to reduce its GHGs emissions by 30%. However, we have limited information on the current aggregate capacity of the solar PV panels (currently the only viable source of renewable energy in Bangladesh) installed by the ready-made garment factories and how much of the total energy demand of the factories is coming from renewable energy sources. Hence, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding how the growing interest in sustainable sources can meaningfully limit GHG emissions. This study will aim to fill this gap by investigating the adoption of sustainable energy sources among ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh.

The research methodology involves three stages: first, the researcher will qualitatively investigate what are the barriers and drivers of renewable energy adoption within the country’s apparel sector. This will be done through 15-20 expert interviews with government officials, industry leaders and other experts. Second, the researcher will survey apparel manufacturing units (about 650) from the catchment areas of one of the two electric utility companies in Dhaka. The survey will include information on the current capacity of renewable energy sourcing at the production units, the timing of the adoption, the reasons for adopting sustainable energy sourcing, and reasons for not adopting. He will further collect data on total capacity and meter IDs to link with the energy use administrative data. Third, the researcher will develop factory specific case studies based on high-frequency power use data, load audits, and the costing of renewable energy technology (RET). In addition, he will adopt the widely used HOMER optimisation tool to estimate net present cost (NPC), levelized cost of energy (COE) and renewable energy fraction (RF). 

This study will contribute to understanding the status of RET adoption within the garment sector, and it will identify the drivers and barriers that have shaped the factories' growing adoption of sustainable energy sourcing. Understanding the status, mechanisms, and constraints will allow to design policies to foster renewable energy sourcing within the sector and other industries in Bangladesh and elsewhere. This project will also contribute to energy policies by shedding light on unit cost and net metering.
 

Authors

Atonu Rabbani

University of Dhaka