A technical seminar titled “Electric Vehicle: Grid Impacts and Bangladesh Scenarios” was held at the VC Seminar Room, AUST on 21^st November, 2023. The seminar was jointly organized by Bangladesh Energy and Power Research Council (BEPRC) and Ahsanullah university of Science & Technology (AUST). Honorable Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr. Muhammad Fazli Ilahi welcomed the distinguished speakers, guests, and participants at the very beginning through his salutation speech. Later on, Mr. Md. Mokabbir Hossain, Chairman of BERPRC, inaugurated the seminar highlighting the need for a sustainable energy system due to global environmental concerns. Mr. Hossain also emphasized and encouraged the need for research for sustainable development of the energy sector in Bangladesh. Honorable Pro-Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. Mohammed Mahbubur Rahman was also present during this inauguration.

Professor Dr. Tareq Aziz, Head, Dept. of EEE, AUST was the keynote speaker of the seminar. Prof. Tareq delivered his keynote speech about the prospect of Electric Vehicle (EV) and the possible after-effects of its large-scale integration on the power grid network. The speech contained the global statistics as well as the policies and the goals of different countries. Prof. Aziz also highlighted the current scenario and the future goals of Bangladesh regarding EV adoption. A portion of the keynote speech highlighted the challenges of EV adoption on a large scale. The main part of the speech elaborately described the impact on the distribution grid of Bangladesh. Prof. Aziz also shed some light on the potential solutions to these challenges and problems. The speech was concluded by highlighting a few selected research works on relevant fields that had been carried out and published by the faculty members and students of AUST.

Following the keynote speech, a panel discussion session was carried out by Dr. Taskin Jamal, Associate Professor, Dept. of EEE, AUST, and Mohammad Monzurul Islam, Superintendent Engineer, NLDC (PGCB).   Dr. Jamal, the moderator of the session, initiated the discussion by raising some queries about the vision of automation of the grid, RE integration, possibility of having a deregulated energy market of the power division with the other panelists.  Mr. Islam delightfully clarified the present grid scenarios of Bangladesh including potential EV integration and also the goals towards the smart grid concept. The session was extremely fruitful to the participants in terms of some insightful information about the grid scenario of Bangladesh covering wide aspects from generation to demand.

The concluding remarks of the seminar were delivered by Dr. Muhammad Monirruzzaman, Member (Innovation), BEPRC. Dr. Monirruzzaman thanked AUST for hosting such an impactful technical seminar in association with BEPRC and hopes to engaged with future research activities.  The event was attended by around 80 participants including experts from power industry, stake holders in EV industry, faculty members and students.