Bangladesh has made a significant progress in energy management, moving seven notches up in a major global energy index, prepared and released by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
The Geneva-based WEF in its “Energy Architecture Performance Index (EAPI) 2016” put Bangladesh at 106, up from 112th position in last year.
The country also achieved higher overall score for better energy management towards economic growth and development, environmental sustainability and energy access and security.
This year the country earned a total score of 0.50 on the scale from 0-1. Last year, the score was 0.45. Progress has also been made in all the three major areas, including economic growth and development (from 0.52 to 0.63), environmental sustainability (from 0.39 to 0.44) and energy access and security (from 0.44 to 0.45).
Switzerland topped the index, with scoring 0.79 while Norway scored 0.78 to secure the second position. Sweden, France and Denmark were among the top five positions, with each of them scoring 0.76.
Conversely, Bahrain (0.36) was at the bottom of the index which included 126 countries. Lebanon (0.43), Yemen Republic (0.44), Haiti (0.44) and Ethiopia (0.44) were four other countries among the bottom five.
The EAPI ranks countries on their ability to deliver secure, affordable and sustainable energy.
In South Asia, Sri Lanka was ranked at 54th, India 90th, Pakistan 103rd and Nepal 115th.
Bangladesh has increased its installed power generation capacity to 12,339 megawatts in the last six years, and now generates more than 7,500 MW of power, catering to two-thirds of its population.
The country plans to generate 24,000MW by 2021 to bring all its citizens under the electricity coverage.
According to the report, for oil-importing countries, the price decrease is a welcome stimulus for advanced economies, and provides an opportunity to strengthen fiscal resilience against capital outflows for many emerging markets.
“However, it is important for policy-makers to continue policies that strengthen the long-term growth potential of their economies. Although futures prices suggest that oil prices will rise only moderately over the next four years, it is important to prepare for the fact that oil prices can rise in the future just as sharply and unexpectedly as they have fallen in the past.”
This year’s EAPI report includes the findings from benchmarking 126 countries on 18 indicators covering energy security and access, sustainability, and contribution to economic growth and development.
The index also points to the strengths of countries beyond the usual suspects. For example, Albania (17th) and Paraguay (21st) boasted fully decarbonised electricity generation, which is reflected in above average environmental sustainability scores.
The report said the world’s largest economies are still struggling to achieve balanced high performance in their energy systems. With the exception of France (4th), none of the 12 largest countries by gross domestic product made it into the top 10 performers.
The EAPI also revealed that diversification to new energy sources is creating new risks and opportunities that would require significant market change and government mechanisms to ensure security of supply and access.
It suggested that governments should be receptive to new opportunities and risks to energy security resulting from developments in the energy sector.
