Biogas as business - biogas transport technology and economic concept for developing countries
- Publication Type
- Contribution to conference
- Authors
- Pütz, K; Asfaw, A; Leta, B; Müller, J
- Year of publication
- 2011
- Conference name
- Tropentag 2011
- Conference location
- Bonn
- Conference date
- October 5 - 7, 2011
Improved energy supply of the rural population in developing nations has the potential to
accelerate the development from a bottom up direction. Not only the uneven distribution of fossil
fuel resources, but also missing infrastructure for distribution and the people`s inability to pay
currently limit a large-scale grid dissemination. In East Africa, about 90% of the energy needed
for cooking, lighting and heating is generated from burning organic material. The resulting short
term excessive wood consumption leads to widespread deforestation in the medium term and
severe soil degradation through soil erosion in the long term. This causal interconnection between
fuel shortage at rural household level and the shortage in fertilizer finally resulting in insufficient
food supply lead to the assumption that supporting the rural poor in their energy needs means
approaching the root of a complex of closely related problems. Within the framework of the
Africa Biogas Initiative of 22 African countries, the dissemination of family-sized biogas plants
is planned, feasibility studies have been undertaken and in some countries the first years of
implementation have already been evaluated. These show that the installation of biogas plants at
household level, each one big enough to theoretically supply one family with sufficient gas, is
fraught with difficulties, especially regarding attainment of the poorest and sustainability of the
subsidy driven activity. In Ethiopia the aim of providing poor rural households with an affordable
source of energy in order to improve living conditions and to reduce environmental impact is
approached as defined in the National Biogas Program Ethiopia (NBPE). It includes a highly
subsidised (around ETB 5000/installation) implementation of domestic biogas for individual
households and is designed to provide 14.000 (0.13%) out of 11.2 million households in 4
selected regions within a 5 year period until 2013 with domestic biogas plants (4-10m³). Progress
reports show a variety of discrepancies between goals and actual achievements. Until December
2010, a number of 860 digesters had been installed (Branden, C., Addis, Y., 2011). Major
constraints of the NBPE are related to lacking financial attractiveness and to the conditions
concerning cattle, funds and water to be met by households. Thus, the majority of households is
excluded from the program due to their inability to meet these conditions.
In order to improve the accessibility of biogas for rural households in developing countries the
subsidy driven domestic application should be transformed to an independent business
opportunity for investors. The present paper sketches an alternative approach for biogas
dissemination and presents a new biogas storage and transport technology.