Kenya biogas program
A smokeless way for households to cook, replacing polluting firewood.
Climate impact
Reduction
Solution
Community
Location
Kenya
Evaluation
Gold Standard
ABOUT
Learn more about the
project
Sometimes, simple changes can make a big difference. The Kenya Biogas Program provides biogas digesters to households. This replaces dependance on firewood, which improves lives, restores barren soils, and provides a clean, safe, affordable, and sustainable energy source in the process.
In Kenya, wood fuel accounts for 68% of the total primary energy consumption. In rural areas, most households use wood-burning cookstoves that cause major health issues from their pollution. And the demand for firewood and charcoal is rapidly outstripping supply, depleting Kenya’s natural resources such as forests, which absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Burning wood also releases the stored carbon back into the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming.
Domestic biodigesters are an ingenious way for households with livestock to reduce their dependence on firewood and fossil fuels. They convert animal dung into biogas, which can be used for cooking. It’s fast and smokeless, so people don’t inhale the harmful fumes. It’s especially good news for women and children, who are the most exposed to indoor pollution caused by cooking with firewood.
There are extra benefits, too! The leftover slurry is an excellent organic fertilizer that can improve crop yields - allowing families to sell more vegetables and provide extra income. By contributing to this project, you’re helping preserve natural resources, reduce CO2 emissions, improve soils, and improve lives.
Africa Bio-energy Programs
ASSESSMENT
Everything about this project at a glance.
Climate impact
Reduction
How to read this
Our atmosphere is like a bathtub, which we have been filling for decades with greenhouse gasses. Each ton of CO2e in the tub increases the global temperature and affects the climate.
In order to prevent our bathtub from spilling - which would mean reaching a +2°C temperature increase - 3 types of actions exist:
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Reduction: These projects reduce emissions, closing the tap and slowing down the filling of the tub (e.g. switching to more efficient fuels)
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Avoidance: These projects preventing future emissions, stopping a new tap from being opened (e.g. protecting forests and peatlands so that they don’t start releasing CO2)
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Removal: These projects remove and capture greenhouse gasses, emptying the bathtub (e.g. reforestation and direct air capture technology)
Solution
Community
How to read this
Solutions are different ways we can reduce, avoid and remove our emissions. They vary in terms of cost, level of maturity, potential to scale, and other factors. To make comparisons easier, Sweep groups solutions into categories such as Forests, Geoengineering or Buildings. Climate solutions are numerous: to learn more about what can be done, explore our catalog.
Location
Kenya
How to read this
Solutions can be deployed in a large range of locations, from a micro-regions to entire sections of a continent. You might want to focus your contributions on specific areas to maximize local socioeconomic impacts or contribute where your activities are based.
Evaluation
Certified • Gold Standard
How to read this
Various international and regional standards rely on established methodologies, dedicated processes and third-party verifications to guarantee that a project delivers on its promises.
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Certified: Standards, such as Gold Standard or Verra, are listed for maximal transparency
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Not certified yet: The process to be certified is expensive and cumbersome, and ad-hoc methodologies might not exist for specific projects, preventing them from being certified. Sweep promotes other projects after a necessary due diligence, bringing more projects to a wider audience while also offering opportunities to develop and tailor new projects according to your own needs.
Capacity
14.50kt
How to read this
Capacity is the projected volume of tCO2e reduced or removed during the crediting period. This indicates the projected net impact of a project after adjusting for potential negative impacts and other externalities. This is key to assessing the current scale of a project and can give a quick estimate of what the considered volumes represent at the project scale.
Capacity does not reflect the available quantity of credits as some of them can already be sold.
Crediting Period
2017 - 2024
How to read this
Certified projects are eligible to generate carbon credits over a certain period of time. This crediting period gives a good estimate of the progress of a project.
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Older crediting periods means that projects have delivered their promises and that third-party auditors have recognized the climate impact
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Crediting periods covering coming years may have already been audited for a fraction of the volumes. The rest will be generated along future audits.
Co-benefits
6 SDGs
6 SDGs
SDG 1: No Poverty
Biogas users reduce their energy purchase, making more money available for the households.
SDG 2: Zero Hunger
97% of active users apply bioslurry on their own crops as organic fertiliser
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
Reduced household air pollution due to clean cooking in 12,913 smoke-free kitchens.
SDG 5: Gender Equality
12,913 women save time (saved from collecting firewood and less time for cleaning kitchen and utensils) and enjoy healthy working environment in their kitchen.
SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
12,913 affordable and clean cooking energy
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
107 Biogas constructing enterprises and masons were actively engaged in the sector in 2019 (pre-covid19). Post covid 70 remain active, others having been adversely impacted.
SDG 13: Climate Action
Since 2011 346,481 tonnes CO2 have been reduced by the Kenya Biogas Program.
How to read this
Projects often have positive side effects beyond reducing, removing, or avoiding emissions. For example, projects might reduce waste, protect biodiversity, or support indigenous people. These co-benefits are modelled after the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Durability
N/A
How to read this
Durability only applies to to removal solutions. It indicates for how long the carbon will be removed from the atmosphere - the longer this is the more desirable. For example, storing carbon as mineral underground is more durable than in a tree, making it a less risky and longer term solution.
Financial additionality
High
How to read this
Additionality reveals the impact of your financial support. It indicates what percentage of the global project budget is coming from contributions.
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High additionality means most of the project revenue relies on contributions, and they would likely not be able to happen without this financing.
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Low additionality projects are less reliant on contributions.
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Other additionality criteria, such as policy or regulatory additionality, are tackled through certifications and not assessed here
Barriers
Medium
The total project barrier score is available when all types of barrier are provided. It is a composite score based on the 5 barriers assessed.
Technical
Financial
Social
Political
Economical
Household biodigesters is a proven technical solution for rural households with at least 2 zero grazing dairy cows or 4 cattle stabled overnight. Masons have been trained and biogas construction companies have been formed (small enterprises, can still be strengthened). The main barrier for scaling is the high upfront cost to install biodigesters. A biodigester can function 20 years, but the financial cost is concentrated in year 1. There are no credit providers with long time horizons (microfinance institutions in Africa rarely offer loans for longer than 12-24 months). Affordability is a key concern. Besides biogas a digester produces bioslurry used as fertilizer. This generates cash income, but not sufficient to pay back a loan in 12-24 months. Carbon finance is used to support affordability, and also the functionality of plants through after-sales services so that farmers effectively continue to enjoy the benefits (social impact) and to a continuous positive impact on climate and environment.
How to read this
Barriers are the different hurdles a project might need to overcome. Barriers can give you a sense for the challenges a project faces, but also how it can add deeper value and create change. We differentiate five types of barriers: economic, social, institutional, technical and financial.
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