Promoting the Use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in East Africa.

. By: Eng. Amos Jackson Mwansumbule.
Executive Director of Tanzania LPG Association, CEO & Founder of Sarojoah Enterprise Company Ltd, and Published Author.

Energy is one of the important end products of various forms of matter thus, solid, liquid,
and gaseous materials. Energy drives the world’s economy and indeed, each country’s
economy.

The type and amount of energy produced and used in a given country may
define or indicate how advanced the economy and general well-being of the society in that
country is.

The most indispensable use of energy is cooking food, and because food is one
of the most basic needs of a human being, cooking energy is the most important one
because it is for people’s lives.

It, therefore, makes sense to pay special attention to cooking energy sources, especially “clean sources .”In East Africa and, of course, most sub-Saharan African countries, the most used source of cooking energy is biomass, thus fuelwood, charcoal, and paraffin (kerosene).

These types of sources of cooking energy are used because they are easily accessible, affordable, reliable, and traditionally known.

Other energy sources, such as electricity produced from different sources (non and renewables), seem to have trilemma challenges (especially in rural areas) such as accessibility, affordability, and security/reliability and may therefore take some time before such challenges are addressed.

Another efficient source of cooking energy for East African countries could be natural gas.

However, natural gas is produced in Tanzania and,to some extent in Rwanda, and it has a challenge of requiring significant distribution costs.

It is understood that all East African countries ratified the UN 17 GOALS – Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including GOAL No.7: “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all .

“According to WHO and Clean Cooking Alliance Organization, air pollution is a leading environmental risk where about four million (including about 450,000 children under five years) people succumb to dirty fuels per year.

Furthermore, about 16% of air pollution globally comes from household air pollution caused by dirty fuels, which contributes to respiratory diseases.

climate change effects such as drought, floods, hurricanes, storms, tsunamis, et al., are also caused by using biomass through deforestation and carbon footprint production.

Due to the adverse effects of biomass, it is therefore important that biomass is replaced by an alternative source (s) of cooking energy, and given the challenges other sources have, as explained above, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is currently the most compelling solution to biomass in East Africa.

LPG product is produced along with other hydrocarbon products such as petrol, kerosene, diesel, etc., through a refining process of crude oil or natural gas by separation process.

Crude oil and natural gas are naturally formed under the earth in special rocks, and their sources are believed to be dead and longtime decayed living organisms (animals and
plants).

LPG is an efficient source of cooking energy due to its key properties, such as; the production of a lower level of pollutants (carbon footprint) than biomass, and it has relatively higher energy content compared to biomass – thus, you can use less equivalent units (equivalent unit of electricity in KWh or Kilogram of charcoal versus Kilogram of LPG) for cooking similar type of food under the same conditions than biomass.

Another benefit of using LPG is that it saves time, is more convenient (flexible) than biomass, and does not deposit soot on the surface of the cooking utensil and kitchen walls or surroundings
.  Lastly, LPG is filled in portable cylinders that can be transported to rural areas, making it more accessible to consumers.

Despite such LPG benefits over biomass, research done in 2022 by African Insight Advisor Organization (AIAO) in Tanzania indicates that most population uses dirty fuels and only about 1% of the rural population uses Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), a cleaner source of cooking energy than biomass, compared to about 54% in urban areas.

The relatively low use of LPG in rural areas, according to AIAO, is due to low limited
accessibility of LPG, low awareness, and affordability challenges.

LPG consumption in East Africa has been growing exponentially, especially in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, where the annual growth has been at least 15%.

However, compared to other African Regions, such as North African countries where per capita consumption is more than 20 Kg per person per year, LPG per capita consumption in East Africa is relatively low.

Kenya is leading at about 6Kg per person per year, followed by Tanzania and Rwanda at about 2.5Kg per person per year and Uganda as well as Burundi having less than 2 Kg per person per year.

Low LPG penetration and consumption in East Africa has been due to relatively limited accessibility due to inadequate investment in LPG infrastructure network within the supply chain (port facilities to handle big LPG ships, receiving and storage terminals, roads, remote cylinder filling plants).

However, there has recently been a steady increase  Another challenge has been the low level of awareness of the benefits of LPG products to consumers against the perception of safety risks which many consumers may have a negative view of and therefore discouraging them from using LPG even for those who can afford to use it

. There has also been a challenge of affordability, considering that many communities in East Africa live below the UN poverty line and that LPG products and related equipment are almost 100% imported from outside the region.

Therefore, it is essential that some transformational initiatives are formulated and rigorously implemented to stimulate LPG consumption in East Africa further, and these should be done jointly between the government, private sector, and other stakeholders.

The governments should lead by urgently coming up with fit-for-purpose effective policies, laws, and campaigns that encourage societies to shift from dirty fuels to modern energy sources such as LPG, work with the private sector to identify key investment incentives to attract more investment in LPG sector (such as removal of taxes on the product, facility equipment, cylinders, and accessories), ensure motivating regulatory framework is in place especially on technical specifications and trade competition compliance, sustainably protect both consumers and investors as well as put in place
impactful transparent monitoring review and control mechanism.

In addition, governments should, through relevant data management systems and decision-making (identification, collection, storage, analysis, interpretation, and reporting), understand the cost spent as a result of household air pollution diseases’ treatment and drought incidents management, which are caused by the use of biomass that causes deforestation and compare that against the cost will be required to subsidize LPG prices to increase the level of penetration and consumption.

One of the hypotheses that can be tested is; “it takes a relatively lower cost to subsidize LPG prices to increase the population that uses LPG than the cost spent to treat people suffering from household air pollution-related diseases such as respiratory and visual as well as drought incidents caused by biomass use.” If this hypothesis is valid, which I believe it is, East African governments will need to subsidize LPG prices, especially for low-income earners, to swiftly, increase the use of LPG over biomass.