Potential environmental impacts of small-scale renewable energy technologies in East Africa: A systematic review of the evidence

Yibeltal T. Wassie and Muyiwa S. Adaramola

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2019, vol. 111, issue C, 377-391

Abstract: This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review and analysis of the potential impacts of Small-scale Renewable Energy Technologies (SRETs) in reducing deforestation, forest degradation and carbon emissions in the Eastern African region. A systematic review approach was used to select, critically analyze and synthesize findings of various studies in the region. The review showed that SRETs, if efficiently and uninterruptedly used, could significantly reduce household consumptions of traditional biomass and fossil fuels, and hence, can reduce deforestation, forest degradation and carbon emissions from biomass energy use at household levels. The FAO charcoal to dry wood conversion rate and the IPCC conversion factor of fuelwood from dry weight to CO2 equivalent were used to estimate potential wood fuel and CO2e emissions savings. Our conservative estimates based on the analysis of the evidence indicated that domestic biogas and improved cook stoves distributed up to now have a combined potential of saving 0.307–3.100 million tons of wood fuel and 0.562–5.673 million tons of CO2e emissions per country per year. However, when compared to the annual biomass energy consumptions of each country, the potential wood fuel savings from the biogas plants and improved cooks-stoves disseminated so far do not appear to offset more than 7.2% of the national demands of the respective countries. The review suggests that building on the household level positive results for scale and lasting impact at national and regional levels requires addressing key policy, technical, financial and sectoral integration barriers.

Keywords: Carbon emissions; Deforestation; East Africa; Energy substitution; Small-scale renewable energy technologies; Traditional biomass fuels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2019.05.037

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