Santosh Koirala
Image: SuSanA Secretariat via Flickr
C
attle dung and kitchen
waste used in biogas plants
are helping to save 400,000
trees a year and reduce fossil fuel
imports in Nepal.
More than a million extra small biogas plants in Nepal could stop forest destruction and reduce the
country’s large import bill for fossil
fuels − but much more investment
is needed to help the impoverished
country reach its goals.
The government’s 2016 Renewable
Energy Subsidy Policy is seeking to
ramp up investments in power
sources such as small-scale hydro,
solar, wind and biomass,
One of the habits it is trying to
break is the use of wood for cooking. Currently, 64% of the population, particularly the rural poor, rely
on supplies of firewood to prepare
their daily meal, causing the destruction of the country’s forests.
The whole programme has a significant way to go, because in 2012/13
renewables accounted for only
1.66% of the country’s total energy
supply, according to the government’s Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC).
Major waste
The largest established form of renewables in this mountainous
country is micro-hydropower, with
36 MW of electricity, but biogas
also has great potential.
This is because the availability of
dung − the major waste used for
biogas production in rural areas −
is calculated at 12 million tonnes a
year, enough to fuel 1.49 million
household biogas plants in Nepal.
And the methane produced by each
micro-plant is calculated to save
1.25 trees a year.
The use of readily-available materials – cattle dung and kitchen waste
in rural areas, and sewage and
kitchen waste in towns – could fuel
a biogas boom to head off a looming energy crisis caused by the everincreasing import of fossil fuels.
Lack of investment in larger-scale
biogas plants in urban areas has led
to a surge in imports of liquefied
petroleum gas
The AEPC says that Nepal, through
the use of the existing 320,000 biogas plants and the avoidance of
cutting tree cover, is already reducing its overall greenhouse emissions
by more than one million tons a
year. This is saving 400,000 trees
annually, and reducing natural gas
imports from India.
A second study by the Biogas Sector
Programme says that the biogas
replaces 800,000 litres of kerosene.
Known potential
Unfortunately, despite its known
potential, the lack of investment in
larger-scale biogas plants in urban
areas has led to a surge in imports
of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
This has now reached 21% of
households.
Despite 670 tonnes of biodegradable waste being generated every
day in 58 municipalities across the
country, the total number of largescale biogas plants is only 350. Lack
of regular maintenance has led to
some of these breaking down
The recently-announced government incentive to subsidise and
provide loans to boost renewable
energy should reduce this decline.
The declared aim is to resuscitate
and expand the renewable energy
source that has already proved to
be a realistic way of reining in the
need for fossil fuels.
Santosh Koirala is an agriculture
student at the Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), Rampur, Nepal.
Email: [email protected]
m; Twitter: @mezereonsantos
Additional reporting by Sameer
Pokhrel, also a student at AFU.
Email: [email protected]
m; Twitter: @sameerpokhrel5
Acknowledgement: http://
climatenewsnetwork.net/
renewables-fuel-optimism-in-