Scaling and commercializing mobile biogas systems in Kenya: A qualitative pilot study

Benjamin K. Sovacool, Matthew Kryman and Taylor Smith

Renewable Energy, 2015, vol. 76, issue C, 115-125

Abstract: This study investigates the benefits and challenges facing an innovative biogas system being commercialized in Kenya by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Biogas International. From 2011 to 2014, IFAD and Biogas International have distributed 500 flexi-biogas system (FBS) units to rural Kenyan households. Based on a comprehensive review of project documents and the peer-reviewed literature, supplemented with in-country research interviews, this study details the history, benefits, and challenges facing the dissemination of these FBS units. We highlight how FBS devices have the potential to address climate-energy-agriculture vulnerabilities and also generate income and improve social resilience. We conclude that although the benefits of FBS adoption cut across dimensions, scales, and sectors, the policies needed to support them must be concomitantly synergistic and multidimensional.

Keywords: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); Biogas International; Biogas cookstove; Bioenergy; Flexi-biogas system (FBS) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148114007101
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:76:y:2015:i:c:p:115-125

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2014.10.070

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().