BOOSTING THE RESILIENCE OF RURAL ELECTRIFICATION IN BANGLADESH Addressing climate vulnerabilities in Bangladesh’s rural power system AT A GLANCE Country: Bangladesh Risks: Multi-Hazard Area of Engagement: Promoting resilient infrastructure GFDRR is assisting Bangladesh to enhance the climate resilience of its rural power system through a combination of risk mapping, knowledge transfer, and innovative solutions. Small town on the waterways of the Ganges Delta in southern Bangladesh. © Jonathan Wilson RURAL ELECTRICITY ACCESS GOING BEYOND POWER UNDERMINED BY DISASTER RISKS GENERATION TO ENHANCE Highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, Bangladesh INFRASTRUCTURE RESILIENCE experiences frequent tropical cyclones, river and coastal Enabled by financing and technical support from GFDRR, the flooding, and high winds. The country faces the additional World Bank has supported BREB to integrate weather-related threat of sea-level rise as the climate changes, exacerbating the hazard and climate risk data into the design of Bangladesh’s impact of extreme weather and natural hazards. The escalating rural power system. Despite the challenges, such as limited frequency of disasters is impacting power generation, data availability on specific attributes of the distribution transmission, and distribution, which, in turn, is jeopardizing network, the technical assistance provided by GFDRR the reliability and affordability of electricity services. Over the through two grants yielded valuable insights and knowledge past decade, the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) on mainstreaming climate resilience into Bangladesh’s rural has achieved remarkable success in implementing one of the electrical distribution networks. It also directly informed largest rural electrification initiatives worldwide, extending World Bank-financed energy operations, particularly the $500 electricity access to over 90 million people. But BREB’s million Bangladesh Electricity Distribution Modernization prioritization of achieving 100 percent electricity access came Program (EDMP), which is helping BREB to prepare a climate- at the expense of investments to strengthen the network against resilient Rural Distribution Master Plan. This master plan will extreme weather and modernize its management. Improving be the backbone of a modern, reliable, and resilient power network resilience and flexibility — with the support of the system, and constitutes a central part of the Integrated Energy World Bank and development partners — has become a central and Power Master Plan, due for release by the Bangladesh goal of the government. government in 2023. RESULTS IN RESILIENCE SERIES 100,000 people are expected to benefit from the engagement Srisailam Dam Reservior, India. ©Fouzia Begum | istock.com Electrical lines in rural Bangladesh. © Md Golam Mortuza Ali GFDRR’s initial support entailed mapping vulnerable power and controlling electricity network infrastructure, ultimately infrastructure exposed to climate and disaster risks — improving customer service and safety, reducing costs of particularly the impacts of cyclones — and identifying areas operations and maintenance, and leading to faster responses for improvement in the rural distribution network. The study during outages. provided a framework for analyzing risks, conducting a cost- GFDRR enabled collaboration with international partners, such benefit analysis, and guiding climate-resilient power system as the European Space Agency, to leverage the expertise of a distribution network planning. It also conveyed the importance consortium of Earth observation companies that conducted of integrating risk information and resilience objectives into asset-level climate risk characterization of the high-voltage Bangladesh’s investment prioritization, as reflected in a 2022 network in Bangladesh. This has enabled the World Bank team World Bank report on the economic analysis of power projects in Bangladesh to advance discussions with the government on around the world. cost-effective remote monitoring of flood and landslide risks Through GFDRR assistance, the government of Bangladesh as well as preventative measures for the vulnerable sections was also informed about policy frameworks and operational of the power grid. This marks an inaugural use case in the practices that could mitigate disaster risks in distribution and broader application of satellite data for improving resilience in transmission, generation, and fuel supply. This knowledge Bangladesh. enhanced capacity building efforts to ensure that operations The World Bank Tokyo Disaster Risk Management Hub, with and policies align with international best practices in GFDRR support, is supporting potential collaborations between power system resilience. This work has also influenced the Bangladesh and Japanese expert counterparts. The World Bank government’s campaign to digitize capabilities for monitoring aims to facilitate Bangladesh and its development partners in RESULTS IN RESILIENCE SERIES Power line pole with a transformer, Khulna, Bangladesh. ©Hamid Photography harnessing top-tier international expertise, including from the Tokyo Electric Power Company, to gain insights into their distribution system resilience and disaster preparedness policies as well as their mechanisms for division of responsibilities and risk sharing. GFDRR’s support will enable the World Bank to engage with Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry to share knowledge on good practices for disaster preparedness and enhance capacity building in rapid disaster response and recovery. GFDRR has successfully supported Bangladesh in integrating climate resilience to the rural power system, with a specific focus on power system planning and post-disaster recovery. Through collaboration with local and international partners, knowledge exchange, and innovative solutions, it is assisting the country to bolster the rural energy infrastructure by making it more resilient against disaster risks that are increasingly being exacerbated by climate change. HIGHLIGHTED RESULTS Improved integration of weather-related hazards and climate risk data into the planning and design of Bangladesh’s rural power system By identifying areas for improvement in the rural distribution LESSONS LEARNED network and informing the Bangladesh government about policy frameworks and operational practices that could ► Adequate data availability underlies accurate mitigate disaster risks, GFDRR supported BREB in enhancing analysis and decision making the disaster and climate resilience of its power infrastructure. Better data provision, through geospatial data collection Greater awareness among stakeholders about the investments or innovative solutions like satellite imaging importance of resilience and long-term durability and artificial intelligence, can strengthen the ability to GFDRR’s support is proving instrumental in identifying areas identify vulnerable assets, model resilient systems, and for improvement in Bangladesh’s rural distribution network. plan strengthening efforts. Availability of high resolution and forward-looking risk data will be critical for making infrastructure investment decisions that are resilient over the lifetime of the assets. ► Building resilience into power system expansion from the start can save costs and improve Knowledge exchange and collaboration between reliability local and international partners can revolutionize resilience-building approaches BREB’s success in expanding electricity access to millions is commendable for its speed and efficiency. Strategic partnerships improved BREB’s resilience measures Had the data on climate and hazard risks been available and disaster response capabilities. By leveraging expertise sooner, universal rural electrification could have been and innovative approaches, GFDRR has helped BREB develop accompanied by a higher degree of reliability. robust strategies for managing climate risks and building a more resilient power distribution network. Contact Information Phillip Matthew Hannam phannam@worldbank.org RESULTS IN RESILIENCE SERIES