Tea factories will be able to embrace gas in their production processes once the ongoing studies on alternative energy for domestic and commercial use is completed and implemented, a top government official has said.
While presenting a report on the status of the energy sector, its achievements and new plans to Parliament, Prime Minister Anastase Murekezi also said locally-made cooking gas stoves would soon come on the market after approvals by the standards watchdog. The Premier said the initiatives are part of the green growth strategy, adding that "efforts are underway to scale up use of cooking gas use in homes, hotels, restaurants and factories.
Presently, Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre (IPRC-Kigali) is testing locally-made cooking gas stoves that are expected to hit the market in coming months. Tea processing factories will be encouraged to embrace gas usage as one of the strategies to reduce their dependence on wood fuel.
There are about 14 tea factories across the country using firewood in tea processing. They use wood fuel to fire boilers to generate steam (vapour) and heat the dryer and trough house.
However, studies indicate that cooking gas is cheaper than using firewood and charcoal. According to the Prime Minister’s report, to parliament, a school with 1,500 students using 533 bundles of wood worth Rwf6.3 million per month could reduce the spending to Rwf1.3 million if it used 1,200 kilogrammes of gas over the same period. A family of five people that uses four sacks of charcoal each month worth Rwf36,000 could reduce the expenditure on cooking fuel to Rwf22,000 if they used 20 kilogrammes of gas a month.
Commenting on the developments last Friday, the Director General of Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), Coletha Ruhamya, said finding alternative energy is central to the country’s green growth and sustainable development strategies, and requires collaboration of different institutions and stakeholders to achieve, including the private sector players.
Ruhamya said there is already an ongoing pilot feasibility study on using gas in tea factories, adding that REMA is working with different institutions, including the National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) and Rwanda Standards Board, to ensure it is efficient and secure before it is rolled out.
The official said promotion of clean energy is in line with the green growth and climate resilience strategy to encourage sustainable development by embracing production approaches that safeguard the environment and the country’s forest cover.
The strategy has 14 points of action; and number 12 is about ‘sustainable forestry, agro-forestry and biomass energy’.
Ruhamya said gas use by tea factories could significantly reduce deforestation, as well as indoor air pollution and carbon emissions that destroy the ozone layer.
The REMA chief added that if Rwanda produces gas from Lake Kivu and also start making gas stoves locally, the country will be able to reduce imports of both products and hence improve the trade deficit, she said.
What tea makers say
Rulindo District-based SORWATHE uses over 10,000 cubic meters of firewood per year, but the amount varies depending on the tea harvest. The firm processes 120 tonnes of green leaf per day.
According to Marcel Murego, the in-charge of administration and human resource, the factory has over 500 hectares of wood lot.
The SORWATHE official welcomed the initiative, but said there is need for a feasibility study on using gas in tea factories to avoid compromising taste and quality of tea.
"More research is required to find out whether using gas affects taste and aroma of tea. We tried to use peat power as one of the cheap alternatives, but it triggered a bad smell in tea, but we have not faced such issues with firewood,” Murego said.
Alain Kabeja, the director general of Rwanda Tea Mountains, said once the feasibility study shows that using gas is more affordable than wood fuel, tea factories would embrace it.
Jean Mutabaza, the director of Rubaya Tea Factory, also called for studies on gas use by tea processing firms to avoid compromising quality in case they switch from using wood fuel to gas.
"We are doing fine with firewood. Remember, switching to gas will also require additional investment capital to buy new equipment and hire manpower,” he said.
The Premier, however, told Parliament that a team of local experts was sent to India by the government to study the use of gas by tea factories, and on return they gave the plan the green light, saying it doesn’t affect tea quality. The experts also indicated that tea produced using wood fuel has "a firewood smell” a reason tea producers should embrace gas. Production of locally-made gas stoves
Speaking to Business Times Paulin Ruzibiza the production unit manager at IPRC-Kigali, said the institute was tasked to carry out research on making gas stoves, adding that they have already produced samples that they submitted to the Rwanda Standards Board for inspection and certification.
"We made stoves of two sizes: small cooking gas stoves and big ones that can be used by schools, hotels or other institutions with big communities,” he said.
Ruzibiza added that testing of the stoves by the standards body is expected to be completed by the end of August.
"If everything goes as planned, we will start mass production of the gas stoves by October. We already have all the necessary equipment to start full production at our factory,” he said.
Supporting green growth strategy
The Rwanda Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy was developed in 2011 to promote sustainable development, protect the environment and reduce production of carbon emissions. Under the strategy, wood consumption could be reduced to between 4.5 metric tonnes per year, keeping biomass consumption within the productive capacity of Rwanda.
The policy also seeks to find ways of improving the efficiency of cooking stoves to reduce the carbon emissions they produce.
It also calls for a strategic and well-laid out plan to transition from wood fuel and charcoal to clean and more efficient cooking methods by providing more sustainable energy alternatives such as biomass pellets and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). Thirdly, the strategy calls for modern agriculture and better forestry management methods to increase productivity.
According to the Fourth Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EACV4), 83 per cent of households use firewood, while 13 per cent use gas and other energy sources for cooking. The average annual wood fuel supply is around two million metric tonnes, while the demand is around five million metric tonnes.
Since 2002, there have been consistent gaps in wood products supply and demand with deficits reaching 12 million cubic meters in 2009. This shows how forests remain under pressure, according to REMA.
Rwanda also loses 40 tonnes of soils annually through land degradation and deforestation due to erosion. To cope with the challenge in 2011, Rwanda committed to restore two million hectares of degraded land and forests by 2020. One of the targets in the country’s Vision 2020 is to increase forest cover to 30 per cent, while under the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy, government seeks to reduce wood fuel consumption to 50 per cent by 2018.
Strategic gas reserve in the offing
Meanwhile, government will soon establish strategic gas reserves to avoid shortages given the increasing number of Rwandans using LPG. It will also introduce regulations to guide gas trading to avoid illegal filling, according to Murekezi.
There are nine firms involved in LPG trade in the country.
The use of LPG in cooking has increased from 724.6 tonnes in 2010 to 2,808.43 tonnes in 2016.
The growing demand is due to campaigns encouraging Rwandans to use clean and cheap energy. Government scrapped value added tax LPG and cylinders to support the drive. Mobilising people to embrace LPG is one of the targets in performance contracts of local leaders countrywide.
The cost of gas has dropped from Rwf1,600 per kilogramme in 2010 to Rwf1,100 currently, and gas cylinders, ranging from one kilogramme are available on the market to ensure every Rwanda can afford LPG.
editor@newtimesrwanda.com