By Sharon Atieno
Majority of households in Kenya, including in urban areas, are dependent on primary fuels such as charcoal, firewood, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and kerosene.
According to the 2019 Kenya Household Cooking Sector Study, firewood is the most commonly used fuel at 54.6%, followed by charcoal at 14.6%, kerosene at 14% and LPG at 13.4%.
However, use of charcoal, wood and kerosene leads to emission of large amounts of pollutants such as particulate matter (PM), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons, and oxygenated and chlorinated organic compounds, have been the leading sources of Household Air Pollution (HAP).
According to the Ministry of Health, HAP claims 21,560 lives yearly. Lower respiratory infections, such as pneumonia and acute bronchitis, have been the greatest contributor to HAP-related deaths in Kenya.
Overall, acute lower respiratory infections are considered the second largest cause of death and are linked to 26% of all deaths reported in hospitals in Kenya. Other diseases linked to HAP exposure include ischemic heart disease (IHD), chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and stroke.
In line with this, the government has been championing for the use of clean cooking energy solutions to help reduce the country’s annual disease burden attributable to HAP from 49% (21,560) to 20% (less than 10,000), according to the Ministry of health.
Ethanol has been listed among the recommended clean energy sources. In Nairobi, the use of this fuel is slowly gaining traction, thanks to new innovations, such as KOKO cookers and their vending machines which make the ethanol fuel easily accessible.
Jane Muthoni, a resident of Dandora estate, uses KOKO, a double burner cooker that uses ethanol. The ethanol stove, she says, does not produce soot nor pollute the house like kerosene stoves. However, she dislikes the lingering alcoholic smell that comes whenever she switches off the cooker.
Muthoni adds that she can get her fuel for as low as Kshs. 30 (about USD 0.3) unlike the LPG that costs Ksh. 1200 (about USD 12) to refill. A refuel of Kshs 30 can make two meals for a family of four (two adults and children).
Vanessa Akoth, a resident of Kahawa Sukari, also uses ethanol for cooking. Four litres of ethanol is enough to cook meals for the entire household where she lives with her aunt and uncle for two weeks. She prefers using the ethanol cooker instead of charcoal because it is not as tedious to light the cooker as it is to light the charcoal stove. It’s just like using the LPG albeit cheaper, she adds.
Akoth says her life has been made easier, because when she is cooking meals which require long hours of boiling like beans, she does not have to keep adding charcoal unlike when using the charcoal stove.
“The best thing about KOKO is the safety. While pouring the ethanol fuel, you cannot light the cooker. According to the design of the cooker, a person can only light the cooker when the fuel hole is closed not when refueling is still taking place, hence safe,” Christopher Aboch, a Kibera resident describes. “Also, being that it does not produce soot like kerosene stoves, my cooking pans (sufurias) remain clean.”
Ethanol cooking fuel is a liquid biofuel that can be produced from a variety of feedstocks, including sugary materials, such as sugar cane and molasses; starchy materials, such as cassava, potatoes, and maize; or cellulosic materials, such as wood, grasses, and agricultural residues. It is among the clean cooking solutions enlisted the Kenyan government.
According to the 2019 Kenya Household Cooking Sector Study, uptake of the fuel has been low at 0.2%. In 2018, households reported to use the fuel throughout the year. Although there are several factors that contribute to the marginal use of ethanol for cooking, price, awareness, supply constraints and limited distribution channels are the most significant.
The report notes that the high cost of ethanol was attributed to 16% VAT and 25% import tariffs. The importation of ethanol is due to the shortage of locally produced ethanol.
The high cost of cooking appliances which used to range between Ksh. 3,000 (about USD 30) and Ksh. 7,000 (about USD 70) depending on design and brand, while ethanol gel stoves start from Ksh. 1,500 (about USD 15) for a single burner, also fueled the low uptake.
There are several promoters of ethanol in Kenya including Leocome, Prosol Limited, KOKO Networks and IR&D Africa Limited. However, the most widely used in Nairobi is KOKO cooker from KOKO Networks, which has 641 vending machines spread across the greater Nairobi region.
According to Sophie Odupoy, Head of Public Affairs, KOKO Networks, a cooker goes for Ksh. 2021(about USD 20) and more than 200,000 households have been connected in greater Nairobi region which includes part of Machakos, Kajiado and Kiambu counties.
Odupoy notes that KOKO has over 700 agents who engage in direct selling of the KOKO cookers in the region. When making purchase, the client buys the cooker with a fuel canister. The canister has a unique serial number which is also registered.
According to a KOKO Network agent based in Kibera, Musa Muruka, who says he has sold over 5000 cookers since 2019, the cooker can also be purchased in instalment. However, the downside is that, the customers must pay the full amount before they can collect the stove and start using it.
The company goes against the traditional approach of centrally bottled ethanol to distribution through vending machines called “KOKO points” where clients can refill their canisters based on their needs.
Muruka, who also operates a KOKO point, adds that the client pays for the fuel using mobile money. The mobile number which was used to register the cooker at the point of purchase is the one to be used to make transactions.
Once the payment is made for the fuel, the client comes to the vending machine which automatically detects the serial number of the canister and keys in their secret pin and accesses the fuel.
Though this might seem like an easy thing, Muthoni notes that using only the mobile number of the person who bought the cooker to purchase the fuel is not a good idea.
“My husband is the one who bought the cooker, so if I have a disagreement with him and we don’t want to talk with one another, I am still forced to go and talk to him to purchase the fuel when the fuel is used up in the cooker because I cannot purchase it on my end,” she says.
Sharing similar sentiments about the issue, Aboch notes that if a person does not have money on his or her phone, they will not be able to get the fuel because somebody else cannot make the purchase for you.
The company plans on scaling their activities outside Nairobi to reach other counties and other countries outside Kenya. To overcome the challenge of low availability of ethanol in the country, the company has partnered with Vivo energy which sources bioethanol cooking fuel from East African and international suppliers.
With Kenya committing to shift to clean cooking energy through development of efficient cooking solutions, the Kenyan Ethanol Cooking Fuel Industry Master Plan projects a drastic increase in demand for ethanol over the next years.
This story was first published by ScienceAfrica
