As students are the country’s future leaders, involving them from early stages allows them to learn, acquire, retain and apply knowledge and skills, which will ultimately boost power sector, and a smart grid revolution, speakers said in a seminar.

The seminar titled “Exploring Smart Grid: Shaping the future of Sustainable Energy” was held on Sunday at United International University (UIU), organized by Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited (DPDC), and co-funded by EU and AFD.

‘Construction and Augmentation of Substation Installation of Capacitor Bank and Introduction of Smart Grid in Power System under DPDC Areas (CSCSG Project)’ is a project initiated by DPDC, co-funded by the European Union (EU) and Agence Française du Développement (AFD).

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The seminar hosted by UIU aimed to discover the endless possibilities of a smarter energy future.

The event was facilitated by the implementing partner and official consultant organization NKSoft Corporation, USA.

The chair of the session was Prof Dr Hasan Sarwar, Dean (School of Science and Engineering), United International University (UIU); the special guest was Engr Bikash Dewan, Managing Director, Dhaka Power Distribution Company Limited (DPDC). Seminar moderation and keynote speech were managed by the consultants from NkSoft Corporation, USA.

The EU was represented by its Energy Team, namely Enrico Lorenzon (First Secretary and Team Leader) and Chiara Vidussi (Attaché and Project Manager).

Lorenzon addressed the audience to underline the relevance of this project as a first stepping stone towards a greener, more efficient and reliable power system in Bangladesh.

Thibaut Hamm, Project Officer of AFD, also highlighted the importance of modernizing the grid and involving the young generations, which represent the future of this country, to tackle Bangladesh’s challenges of tomorrow.

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The seminar had the objective to raise awareness on Smart Grid among the next generation talents, to bring them on this journey to make the country, and its power system, smarter.

The event started with a welcome speech by Abdul Alim, Project Director, CSCSG Project and finished with the speech by Prof Md. Shahriar Ahmed Chowdhury, Director CER, UIU.

This seminar counted 250 participants from UIU and it was conducted through an interactive format where students were challenged and encouraged to express their opinions.

“We are here to get more innovative ideas for accelerating the Smart Grid project,” said Abdul Alim.

Bikash Dewan said Smart Grid is the first initiative of Smart Bangladesh so they have to move on with innovations and skilled manpower as energy is the one of the main sources of the country’s economic growth today.

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“Power Factor Improvement and Smart Grid under Dhaka Power Development Company (DPDC)” is a blended finance project where an EU grant is combined with a soft loan from AFD, for a total of EUR 112 million. The project has the following main features:

A total of 1,141,000 people will benefit from a significant improvement in the quality of electricity service; and it helps fight climate change by preventing an accumulated 104,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year. It is the first ever-smart grid project in Bangladesh.

Through this project, AFD and the EU are reinforcing their role in supporting the government in the development and rollout of advanced digital solutions in distribution stations and medium-voltage grids.

The goal is to equip existing infrastructure with these new, innovative and reliable technologies with a view to ensuring services are fit for the country’s future.

A core aspect of Bangladesh’s economic development strategy is represented by an improved performance of the power sector in terms of generation, transmission, and distribution.

Today, the smart grid in Bangladesh is in its initial phases, and it mainly consists of deploying smart meters.

Overall, the smart grid solution is of great operational value.

This innovative tool makes it possible, among others, to carry out maintenance upstream of failures and to optimise the use of equipment (power transformers, circuit breakers, etc.).

Real-time algorithms will continuously analyse the hardware connected to the grid and thus extend its life.

The digital presence at all levels of the network allows for better knowledge of the network itself and anticipation of outage-related events.

A smart grid means a more reliable, resilient grid. Improving its performance will consequently eliminate the pollution caused by the diesel generators that are used as backup during grid outages.