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№ 44 · appended

Bangladesh sets a Tk 10.50 export price for rooftop solar, benchmarked on a system with storage

Almost every rooftop export scheme in South Asia pays for energy and is indifferent to when it arrives, which is why utilities across the region keep tightening net metering as penetration rises: a midday kilowatt-hour bought at a retail-linked rate is expensive at the hour power is cheapest and does nothing for the evening peak that actually causes the load shedding. Bangladesh has instead built its benchmark around a system with storage, which is an attempt to buy the shape of the output rather than its volume. The catch is that paying for the presence of a battery is not the same as paying for its behaviour: nothing published describes a dispatch obligation, a minimum battery size, or any time-of-day differentiation in the Tk 10.50, so a rational installer may fit the smallest qualifying battery and export whenever the sun dictates. The scheme is also unusually legible, with the benchmark, the margin and the premium each stated separately in a sector that mostly procures through opaque bilateral and quick-rental contracts, which means that when it succeeds or fails the price can be decomposed and argued about. That makes it a readable test of the opposite regional instinct, which is to restrict export rights rather than pay for the storage that would make exports less troublesome.

Bangladesh's Power Division has priced surplus rooftop exports at Tk 10.50 a unit and shown its working. The benchmark the price is built on assumes a battery, which makes this a subsidy for dispatchability rather than for generation, and the window to qualify closes in five months.

On 1 September 2026 Bangladesh's Power Division issued a notification setting a purchase price of Tk 10.50 per kilowatt-hour, about $0.086, for surplus electricity exported to the national grid from rooftop solar. Consumers who install and commission a qualifying system by 28 February 2027 receive that rate for three years, to 28 February 2030. Systems commissioned after the deadline are not eligible for it.

The tariff is constructed rather than negotiated, and the construction is published. The Power Division set a benchmark generation cost of Tk 8 per unit for a rooftop system with battery storage, derived from current market prices and from recent tenders it reviewed, then added a 20 per cent profit margin and a further 11.25 per cent premium to arrive at Tk 10.50. Anyone who installs below the Tk 8 benchmark keeps the difference. Incentive payments are made into bank accounts or mobile financial services accounts and, the notification states, may not be paid in cash under any circumstances; distribution companies keep the records and determine the amounts due.

This sits on top of the existing framework rather than replacing it. Energy Bangla reports the incentive operating under the Net Metering Guideline 2025, which nets exports against a consumer's own consumption, so the Tk 10.50 applies to surplus remaining after self-supply.

The pressure behind it is immediate. Bangladesh's peak supply shortfall reached nearly 4,000 MW in August 2026, driven by gas constraints and fuel supply concerns, with the resulting outages spread across a country of 175 million people. Against that, roughly 1,559 MW of renewable capacity is installed today, and the stated target is 20 per cent of generation, about 5,500 MW, by 2030, rising to a 30 per cent share by 2040.

Paying for the battery, not the behaviour

The interesting design choice is that the cost benchmark is defined for a system with storage. Most rooftop export schemes in South Asia pay for energy and are indifferent to when it arrives. That indifference is exactly why utilities across the region keep tightening net metering as penetration rises: a midday kilowatt-hour bought at a retail-linked rate is expensive at the hour power is cheapest, and does nothing for the evening peak that actually causes the load shedding. Bangladesh's shortfall is an evening and shoulder problem. Tying the benchmark to a stored system is an attempt to buy the shape of the output, not just its volume.

The obvious risk is that paying for the presence of a battery is not the same as paying for its behaviour. Nothing in the reporting consulted describes a dispatch obligation, an availability requirement, a minimum battery capacity or duration, or any time-of-day differentiation in the Tk 10.50. A flat per-unit export price pays the same for a kilowatt-hour delivered at noon as for one delivered at eight in the evening. If that is how the notification is written, a rational installer fits the smallest battery that satisfies the eligibility check and exports whenever the sun dictates, and the instrument has bought a compliance artefact rather than a controllable resource. This is a question about the notification's text, which this piece has not read. [UNVERIFIED: the minimum battery specification, and whether any dispatch or availability condition attaches to the payment.]

The sunset is the other structural term. A battery is the expensive part of the system and it has to earn its cost back, but the payment supporting it is committed only to 28 February 2030. Nothing published says what follows. A household evaluating this offer in the next five months is therefore being asked to buy a twenty-year asset against a three-year revenue commitment, with no stated grandfathering. [NEEDS DATA: any provision for the tariff after February 2030, and any grandfathering commitment for systems already commissioned.]

Why it matters

Two things make this worth watching from outside Bangladesh. The first is that the tariff is legible. The benchmark, the margin and the premium are all stated as separate numbers, which is unusual in a sector that more often procures capacity through opaque bilateral and quick-rental arrangements. When the scheme succeeds or fails, it will be possible to argue about why, because the price can be decomposed. That is a low bar and most schemes do not clear it.

The second is that regulators across the region are converging on the same problem from opposite directions. Some are responding to rising rooftop penetration by restricting export rights and trimming the compensation. Bangladesh is instead attaching a price to the storage that would make the exports less troublesome in the first place. Which approach produces more installed capacity, and more useful capacity, per unit of public money is an open empirical question, and a short deadline against a published derivation makes Bangladesh a readable test of it.

What is still unknown

  • The notification's number, its signatory and its issuing office. Reports variously credit the Power Division and the Energy and Mineral Resources Division, and Mercom attributes the announcement to emrd.gov.bd. [UNVERIFIED: the notification itself was not retrieved.]
  • The minimum battery capacity or duration that qualifies a system, and whether any availability or dispatch obligation attaches.
  • Eligible consumer categories, and whether there is a cap on qualifying system size.
  • Whether there is a programme budget or an aggregate capacity cap, which would make the deadline a queue rather than a date. [NEEDS DATA]
  • The current retail tariff by consumer slab, without which the Tk 10.50 export rate cannot be set against what the same household pays to import. [NEEDS DATA]
  • Installed rooftop capacity in Bangladesh to date and the size of the net metering pipeline, without which the scheme's ambition cannot be scaled. [NEEDS DATA]
  • Three of the Bangladeshi outlets carrying the fullest accounts, The Daily Star, The Business Standard and Business Recorder, refused direct fetches. Details drawn only from them are marked in the verification note on this item.

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