Assessment and evaluation of solar irrigation system in Bangladesh

Among the various form of renewable energy technologies Solar photovoltaic technology is perhaps the most used one to generate electricity especially in the rural area of all over the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the potentiality and cost effectiveness of using solar irrigation system in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the introduction of solar water pumps, which are manufactured using locally available technologies, will not only shorten the gap between demand and production of electricity immensely and help poor and marginal farmers increase their yield but also bring down their agricultural production costs substantially in the next 20 years. Existing projects in this sector are noted. Some limitations and remedies are discussed. The resulting cost-benefit analysis shows a great economic advantage for solar irrigation system over using traditional grid electricity driven pump irrigation system.