Bangladesh will put rooftop solar on a statutory footing, with a dedicated law to be passed in the next session of Parliament, Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Iqbal Hassan Mahmood said on Saturday.
Speaking at a roundtable in Dhaka organised by the newspaper New Age, the minister described solar as a priority for energy security and a way to ease pressure on gas, oil and imported fuel. He was candid about the wider picture: the current energy crunch, which he linked to global conflicts and especially the war in the Middle East, will not be fixed quickly. Alongside solar, the government is subsidising consumers where needed and pursuing more floating LNG terminals to cover future shortfalls.
The minister did not say what the bill will contain. It is also not yet clear whether it will simply turn October’s solar ordinance into an act of Parliament or add new rules on top.
What is already in place
The groundwork moved quickly in October, when the government issued the Special Solar Power Installation Ordinance, 2026, which opens rooftops, courtyards, unused land, tea gardens and water bodies to solar projects of up to 5 MW. It covers floating solar and agrivoltaics, where crops grow under or beside panels, but leaves out large ground-mounted solar farms. Officials want 3,000 to 4,000 MW of renewable capacity added before next summer, with small, scattered installations expected to supply much of it.
The ordinance sets out two ways to pay. Under an OPEX model, a solar company funds, builds and runs the system and is repaid from the power it produces, so the building owner pays nothing upfront. Under a CAPEX model, the owner buys the system outright. Contracts must follow a standard template covering roof use, equipment quality, power price, net metering and the disposal of old panels, including take-back by manufacturers. Theft of solar equipment or electricity can draw up to three years in prison, and the Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority (SREDA) is tasked with keeping a register of installed systems.
The minister added that a household rooftop programme has been launched in Bhaluka, that local government bodies, health authorities and district administrations have been told to switch to solar, and that around 8,600 service providers have been enlisted to install systems. The government is also watching the quality of panels sold in the local market, he said.
What it means here
For factories, offices and homeowners, the economics are already attractive on paper. Installers say a grid-tied system without batteries costs up to about Tk 50,000 per kilowatt, with payback in roughly three to three and a half years at commercial tariffs. Under the current net-metering guideline, systems connected by February 2027 earn Tk 10.50 for every unit exported to the grid until February 2030. Recent figures show about 4,550 net-metered systems with a combined 213 MW, while energy think tank IEEFA estimates industrial rooftop capacity alone at around 667 MW.
Corporate users are moving too. Late last week, Grameenphone switched on a 325 kWp solar plant at its Sylhet data centre, built with ZTE, which the operator expects to generate more than 300 MWh a year.
The gap has been execution rather than intent. Researchers at IEEFA and the Centre for Policy Dialogue have reported that net-metering connections are often delayed well beyond the official 10 to 15 days. A law could give investors and banks more certainty than an ordinance, but buyers will judge it on whether utilities connect systems on time, whether the export tariff holds, and whether poor-quality panels are kept off the market. Those details, not the headline target, will decide how much of the 3,000 MW ambition actually reaches rooftops.
