A large population in Africa, crippled by lack of affordable clean energy, is still using wood to cook and illuminate houses despite the detrimental effects on the environment. This is due to low gas acceptance in Africa.

Another large part of African households rely on heavily on kerosene-powered stoves for cooking and lighting due to its ease to access and its affordability — most governments on the continent still subsidize it.

There are efforts from various quarters including health ministries, non-governmental organizations and stakeholders in the petroleum sector to push for the increased use of liquefied petroleum gas as the main source of energy.

In contrast to wood and kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas is more environmental friendly, has minimal health hazards and is more effective in producing more heat than wood and kerosene.

Despite the advantages that liquefied petroleum gas has over both kerosene and wood only about 7 percent of its potential has been exploited in Africa. Only countries in the northern part of Africa have successfully tapped into this clean and efficient source of energy.

Africa LPG summit

The first Africa LPG summit was held in Nairobi in early July to discuss the challenges in the adoption of the commodity on the continent. Speakers said the lack of infrastructure to support the daily use of LPG was a major hindrance to gas acceptance in Africa.

The huge investment needed and the lack of incentives by many African countries has stifled investment in liquefied petroleum gas storage facilities, according Paula Joubert, general manager of business development at Oryx Energy.

Joubert said the lack of tax incentives for the capital heavy sector, as seen in the early years of other successful sectors such as the telecoms, has kept LPG from reaching many homes.

“This is not an easy sector, you have to dig if you want to put up even a small storage facility, it will cost you millions of dollars. The government needs to also step in and help us make this [investment] decision through incentives,” Joubert told delegates at the summit.

In countries where investment has been forthcoming investors still face other challenges including the high cost of LPG due to continued high taxation by government agencies, while subsidizing kerosene.

Another challenge include small storage facilities that lead to increased costs as countries fail to benefit from the economies of scale.

In Kenya for example data from the ministry of energy shows that the country has a storage of just 15400 metric tonnes which is far below the country’s demand. The ministry estimates that if the constraints were to be handled effectively Kenya’s consumption of gas could shoot to 735,217 metric tonnes from 90,000 metric tonnes the east African nation consumed in 2010.

Policy Challenges

Even major producers such as Nigeria only consume about 250,000 metric tonnes consumed annually despite the country being the second largest producer of the commodity on the continent. This is further evidence of a lack of gas acceptance in Africa.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) lack of proper policies encouraging use of clean energy could see another 100 million people globally shift to using biomass fuels  in the next few of years. Currently, about 2.5 billion people use biomass worldwide .

This, IEA says, would results to adverse health, environment and economic consequences with about 1.3 million people – mostly women and children – expected to die prematurely every year from exposure to indoor air pollution.