A Spatial Model Towards Renewable Energy and Water Safe Village

Abstract

The increasing consumption of non-renewable energy and consequent global warming calls for use of renewable energy at scale. Bangladesh is moving toward ensuring renewable energy for all households by 2025 and has already been ranked 2nd in the world in providing off-grid solar home systems. Yet, national energy generation is largely dependent on fossil fuels and covers about one-third of the rural households. Driven by thriving economic development, villages of Bangladesh are experiencing rapid socio-economic-spatial transformation. However, most of the rural population lives with short of energy and safe water which is the main obstacle in sustainable transformation of rural settlements. To compensate for this shortage, they rely on traditional renewal energy sources such as biomass and solar energy to meet their daily needs. Regarding this energy-water scenario, this research aims to explore the potential of planning renewable energy integrated homestead from a physical-spatial design perspective taking a typical village as the case. With a multidisciplinary-exploratory approach the research is designed with a two-fold methodological framework: 1) investigation of existing energy status (consumption, needs and affordability) and water security (usage, sources and quality); 2) mapping spatial patterns of available energy and water services; and 3) exploration of existing homestead morphology to examine the scope of integrating renewable energy and rainwater harvesting systems in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Based on the triangulation of findings from these investigations, the research develops a Renewable Energy and Safe Water Integrated Spatial Model towards sustainable transformation of rural settlements.