Abstract:
Daily headlines make everyone aware of the dangerous long-term effects of power generation from the fossil fuels. It is widely believed that continuing to depend on fossil fuels to generate electricity can cause serious environmental problems. Moreover, fossil fuels are finite in amount and cost a lot of money as well. Hence, renewable energy is a potential solution to meet up electricity demand for the developing countries like Bangladesh. Among all the renewable technologies, solar photo voltaic (PV) is the most potential, favorable and promising one which converts solar energy into electrical energy, including or excluding battery backup. Although solar technology has nearly been successful in rural areas where most of the technologies are adopted based on Solar Home System (SHS), it has not yet been effective in urban areas after the imposed rule of meeting 3% of light fan load of a building. We have investigated the installed solar rooftop of 86 houses in Narayanganj, where the solar system of most of the houses were found inactive. Among them only 50 systems are active. In this thesis the overall analysis of urban solar prospect has been done in three layers based on this investigation.
After all, the effectiveness of the system was discussed in brief to influence them to come to know about the appropriateness of the system and the proper way to maintain the system. It is seen that a few among them find the system useful and want to increase its capacity. The operating condition and maintenance of the SRS was evaluated as well. Most of the interviewed people do not either maintain the system or want to repair it. It is very unfortunate that most of the systems were found inactive or not connected in a proper way. Although urban people are more likely to know the efficient use of solar energy, they still prefer fossil fuels for their power generation. In this manner, they are indirectly contributing to environmental hazards and wasting a lot of money too. From the reading of an installed solar system, the cost per unit is calculated later as an example. However, the appropriateness of the system to the consumer is very limited due to having a lack of knowledge and training to operate the system productively.
