Domestic Biogas in Africa Lessons from SNV & HIVOS biogas programs in Vietnam, Tanzania & Burkina Faso Bruno Verbist With inputs from Vu Dinh Ton Idrissa Kaboré Hezron Makundi
Introduction Biogas: Popular in East & South Asia A century old technology (first digester in Bombay, 1859) Since 60 ies in development aid: Often tried, often failed Revival since 2000 // climate change debate, interest in renewable energy
Questions Biogas: Can it realise its potential? Can the private sector play a role through market based development? Renewable energy. Subsidy policy Impact of results based financing (RBF) Cases from Vietnam, Burkina Faso and Tanzania Film: Why biogas is brilliant
Multiple Benefits tsof Domestic Biogas Plants Health& sanitation Environment Energy Agriculture Economy
Training: Bac Ninh 5
Developing a commercially viable biogas sector Program functions (Wim Van Nes, SNV, 2009)
Biogas Program: Implementation Structure (Martijn Veen, SNV) Programme Support CAMARTEC TDBP Office National Biogas Steering Committee LCBs TA Institutional partnerships Government Ministries, private sector, CSO Implementing Partners MIGESADO FIDE ELCT KDA NRCF Caritas OTHER Private sector associations Masons Enterprises: digester construction, appliance provision and after sales services MFIs Households
Vietnam: Number of digesters/year 35000 30000 25000 20000 LIFSAP (WB) QSEAP (ADB) BPD (SNV) 15000 10000 5000 0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 End of 2012: 148.173 digesters through 3 large biogas programs; ca. 750.000 households; major driving factor = pig market
Commercially viable market? Sampling: Provinces Table 1. Selected provinces and districts for the Biogas survey Region Province District (Huyện) North Northern Uplands Yen Bai Văn Chấn Red River Delta Bac Ninh Yên Phong Red River Delta Haiduong Kim Thành Red River Delta Ninh Binh Yên Khánh Centre Central Coast BinhĐinh Hoài Ân South South East Dong Nai Xuân Lộc Mekong Delta Ben Tre Mo Cay
Commercially viable market? Province District Number Numb Number of Number %SNV/bi number free free free of pigs er of HH using of HH ogas of non- market% market market HH biogas for with SNV users SNV from 2013 (numbe % in cooking project digesters questionn rs) district (2012 Nat. aire survey) Yen Bai Văn Chấn 49345 34646 312 241 77 71 30,0 21 7 Bac Ninh Yên Phong 41472 31866 2163 692 32 1471 37,5 552 26 Hai Duong Kim Thành 61390 36975 1116 362 32 754 65,0 490 44 Ninh Binh Yên Khánh 50927 37082 1096 468 43 628 80,0 502 46 Binh Dinh Hoài Ân 109679 21761 2261 530 23 1731 100,0 1731 77 Dong Nai Xuân Lộc 122584 47305 673 143 21 530 67,5 358 53 Ben Tre Mo Cay 160663 40933 3050 403 13 2647 62,5 1654 54
Vietnam: Cum. number of digesters/year 250000 200000 150000 100000 Agric. Survey LIFSAP (WB) QSEAP (ADB) BPD (SNV) Private sector 50000 0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20122012 Total End of 2012: 148.173 digesters through 3 large biogas programs; 206.583 in countrywide agricultural survey (ca. 28% private sector)
African Biogas Partnership Programme (HIVOS-SNV) Number berof digeste sters installed led until Decem ecember 2013
Tanzania Domestic Biogas Programme (TDBP) Achi hieved production 2009-2014 2014 > 40% less as the target in 2014!
What happened in 2014? SNV: Removal of the subsidy (A 6 m 3 digester costs about 500 Euro; subsidy was 160 Euro) Possible remedies: o Other donors to put the subsidy back? o Improve credit? Perceived payback time is ca. 2 years; micro credit schemes payback time is 6 months (@ a 15% interest rate!)
Burkina Faso (# digesters/year) 2500 Plants evolution 2000 2001 1500 1292 1446 1000 609 500 111 0 An2010 An2011 An2012 An2013 An2014 Subsidy issue? Burkina Faso and Ethiopia continued the subsidy in 2014, when the Netherlands decided that finally the countries should be paying for this and not ABPP no impact for the clients. Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda saw this as a donor responsibility
What happened in 2014? Full impact of the in 2013 introduced Results Based Financing o Perceived as a risk by local partners short term > longer term investments o Too drastic implementation different perceptions Rather abrupt transfer of promotion function away from implementing partners to poorly prepared masons/ cooperative entreprises
Burkina: driving factors to invest in a digester? Strong gender effect: Men want bioslurry; women want biogas
Other observations + Gender impact: wood collection is a woman s job, digester maintenance by both women and men Bioslurry should get more interest (For many men more important than the biogas, but the biogas comes with the slurry) Still a large need for promotion (> 50% of the HH >20 km away from someone with a BD had never heard about biogas No toilet connection in Burkina Faso New digester type : Model BBF-2015 o 20-25 % cheaper (less cement) o Less need for water
Conclusions Different driving factors in different countries Biogas in Africa has more challenges, but potential is being realised Still early stage of biodigester market development The private sector can be a powerful engine, but is more sensitive to shocks (Tanzania, Burkina Faso) Innovation! Cost reduction through new digester type Results based financing often portrayed as the way forward, but rolling it out should be done carefully (risk of backfiring!) More work needed on micro-credit (payback time of 2 yrs needed instead of often 6 months, push for lower interest rates is needed)
Thank you for your attention! Questions? 21