Grameen Shakti to export solar technicians to Arab-Africa

Grameen Shakti is set to export women solar technicians to African and Arabian countries to transfer Bangladesh's technology to those nations.
"My dream is to develop our human resources development in solar areas, as solar energy would be the key issue in the world as it is renewable and green energy. We would be the pioneer to export skilled solar technicians in the global market if we can develop human resources in this sector", Dipal Chandra Barua, managing director of Grameen Shakti, told the news agency yesterday.
To implement the idea, Grameen Shakti has started working with the Bureau of Manpower, Management and Training in three districts, including Faridpur and Khulna.
They have also set up 33 Grameen technology centres across the country to train rural women as solar technicians and entrepreneurs.
Grameen Shakti has installed more than 200,000 Solar Home Systems, over 6,000 biogas plants and over 25,000 improved cooking stoves.
They also plan to install one million 'solar home systems' by 2010 and construct 500,000 biogas plants and 10 million 'improved stoves' by 2012, he said.
For this remarkable achievement in popularising such a system across the country, Grameen Shakti has been awarded with the first Zayed Future Energy Prize 2009 for reaching renewable energy technologies to rural people.
"This reward has increased my responsibility to the society. The prize money includes 1.5 million US dollars, a certificate and a gold medal. I want to invest the money for the development of the rural poor women", Barua said.
"I have started working in the field in 1996 with the
village women and achieved my goal. My target is now to make the rural women self-reliant to help make the country poverty-free ", he added.
During the prize-giving ceremony, they asked to supply manpower (technicians) to theizr county to install the Solar Home System, he said.
USAID supports Grameen Shakti with two million US dollars to focus on the economic empowerment of rural women by imparting them training to install and maintain photovoltaic Solar Home Systems (SHS), Improved Cooking Stoves (ICS) and Biogas plants.
The Grameen Shakti MD said his organisation installed 20,000 solar home system and trained 15,000 girls as a technician earns seven to nine thousand taka per month. Still, he faces some problems to popularise it among the masses.
"Our first objective is to bring down the cost of solar panel and make it affordable to all, and then install solar grid and make it a solar using nation through creating huge jobs for the women by providing them proper training both at home and abroad ", Barua said.
He said the authorities will have to frame a policy guideline to support the ongoing Renewable Energy (RE) programme to make the government's initiative in the RE field a success.
Referring to the high cost of per unit electricity from renewable energy, he said the government should take initiative to bring the urban people under the programme to help them install solar PV on the roof top as the poor rural people will not be able to afford it.