8 SEPTEMBER 14, 2014

special report> Energy

DAILY MONITOR
WWW.MONITOR.CO.UG

Is Uganda prepared for the

Blossoming. As those
in rural Uganda now find
it harder to get firewood,
families in urban and periurban areas are also paying
more for charcoal, which the
government estimates to
be a Shs900b-a-year subsector, writes Eriasa Mukiibi
Sserunjogi.

s Grace Nakamatte, a mother

of five in Kaliisizo, Rakai District, says two of her children
spend at least four complete days a
month away looking for firewood.
The burden of collecting firewood
for the family falls on the duo, James
Matovu, 15, and Emily Nayiga, 14,
because their siblings are considered too young for the task and their
mother, having done it since her
early teens, is now happy to rely on
her children in this regard.
Their father, Mr Joseph Bukenya,
will not offer a hand because men are
generally precluded from the exercise.
Ms Nakamatte says collecting firewood was an easier task when she was
growing up in the 1970s, because the
woodlands and forests were closer
to home and dry twigs and branches
that fell off trees were more readily
available for them to collect.
Her children are not as lucky. On
the day they are supposed to collect
firewood, they will be gone from
morning to sunset because they have
to get it from far away and it is hard
to collect, Ms Nakamatte says.
When for some reason the children
are not able to collect the firewood,
says Ms Nakamatte, whose husband
runs a retail shop, they will have to
buy it.
This family is not very different
from many in the rest of rural Uganda.
Firewood has been getting scarcer as
woodlands and forests shrink in the
face of increased demand due to the
fast-growing population.

High growth rate

Ugandas population is estimated
to grow by more than 3 per cent per
year, which is among the highest
growth rates in the world. With more
mouths to feed and new families ever
emerging, the demand for energy for
cooking keeps mounting.
And the worst is still to come, especially if you believe a prediction Erick
Eckholm made in his 1975 book, The
Other Energy Crisis: Firewood.
Looking at how reliant on wood for
cooking many of the poor countries
were, he feared that the crisis resulting from shortage of wood will probably be longer and more difficult to
overcome than the petroleum prices
crisis that the world was undergoing
then.
In Kaliisizo, where Ms Nakamattes
family lives, a 2010 study quoted by
the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Development found that some families made return journeys of eight
to 12 kilometres just to collect firewood.

A man packs charcoal into bags. Mr Godfrey Ndawula, the assistant commissioner in charge of renewable energy sources at the ministry of Energy, says Uganda is
overstepping the limits as regards wood consumption. FILE PHOTO

OUTLOOK
Uganda covers
a total area of
241,550 Km2.
Approximately
41,743.2 Km2 or
17 per cent of this
area is covered
by open water
and swamps; and
the remaining
197,610 Km2, is
land (UBOS 2011).
The current size of
the conservation
estate is 45,222
Km2 representing
18.7 percent of
Ugandas total land
area. According to
Ubos (2011), the
proportion of land
covered by forests
was 18.3 percent
in 2005. This was
a decline from the
21.3 percent forest
cover in 1990.
Palm

As those in rural Uganda now find

it harder to get firewood, families
in urban and peri-urban areas are
also paying more for charcoal and
charcoal burning and trade, which
the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development estimates to be a
Shs900b-a-year sub-sector, is blossoming.
At Coo-room in Nwoya District,
Mr Yasiin Kato, supervises 15 men as
they pack charcoal in sisal sacks.
Mr Katos boss, Mr Yusuf Kisitu,
who is one of the suppliers of charcoal in Kampala, first posted him to
Nakasongola before relocating to
Nwoya. Mr Kisitu keeps shifting his
operations, moving on to other areas
as harvestable trees get exhausted
wherever he may be operating.
Mr Kisitu bought trees occupying
10 acres in the middle of a forest in
Coo-room, which Mr Kato and others
are clearing to burn charcoal.
In Nakasongola, where they first
operated before shifting to Nwoya
mid last year, Mr Kato estimates that
they produced at least 5,000 sacks of
charcoal, which was ferried to Kampala. The plan is for them to move
on when the trees in Coo-room are
finished.
But the accumulated effect of what
the firewood gatherers and charcoal
burners do, of course in addition to
what the other people who harvest
trees do, has left many worried.
Mr Godfrey Ndawula, the assistant
commissioner in charge of renewable
energy sources at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, says

Uganda is overstepping the limits as

regards wood consumption.
He says Uganda is over-dependent
on use of tree biomass, with the demand for charcoal and firewood estimated at 44m tonnes per annum in
2013. The ministry of Energy further
estimated that this demand could
easily rise to 135 million tonnes per
year if no interventions were put in
place.
Out of the 44 million tonnes of wood
demanded for firewood and charcoal
per year, however, Mr Ndawula says
Ugandas available wood stock, which
is estimated at 286, 000m tonnes, can
only sustainably supply 26m tonnes,
leaving a deficit of 18 million tonnes.
And, he adds, possibility of Uganda
making up the deficit by adding
bushes, shrubs and a small portion

A girl in Mayuge District heads back home after collecting

firewood. PHOTO BY WILLIS OMITH

UGANDAS ENERGY RESOURCES

gandas energy sector

comprises both locally
produced and imported
traditional and conventional sources of energy.
Fuel-wood and charcoal
dominate the locally produced traditional energy
sources in the country.
The two are the most
prevalent energy sources
at both supply and demand
levels. Electricity, petroleum products and renewable energy are the key

sources of conventional
energy in the country. All
petroleum products are
imported, while electricity
is locally generated except
for very limited off-set/
inter-connection imports
from Kenya and Rwanda.
Ugandas internal energy potential is high but
comprises of largely undeveloped hydro, mini-hydro,
solar, biomass, geothermal and peat resources.
Biomass accounts for

more than 92 per cent of

Ugandas primary energy
supplies, while imported
fossil fuels and electricity
supply only 4.1 and 1.3 per
cent respectively. Uganda
is therefore an energy
poor nation with limited
access to modern sources
of energy particularly electricity.
State of the Environment
Report 2010

SEPTEMBER 14, 2014 9

Sunday Monitor

www.monitor.co.ug

looming charcoal crisis?

THE RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCE BASE

A charcoal laden motorcycle rides past a pick-up full of charcoal in Idobo village, Lalogi Sub-county, Gulu District recently. PHOTO

Uganda has considerable renewable energy

resources for energy production and the
provision of energy services, yet they remain
unexploited, largely due to the perceived
technical and financial risks. These
resources include: biomass, geothermal,
large scale hydro, mini/micro/pico hydro,
wind and solar energy. However, with the
exception of biomass, whose contribution
is very significant, the remaining renewable

sources (including large hydros), contribute

about 5 per cent of the countrys total
energy consumption. This limits the scope
and productivity of economic activities,
that can be undertaken in any part of the
country. Thus, it is imperative that the use
of these abundant resources should be
enhanced.

Biogas and solar to the rescue?

Mr Ndawula admits that even with
better use of the available wood fuel
and planting more trees, Uganda will
still need to adopt more sustainable
energy sources for cooking. And, he
says, biogas and solar would come in
handy.
These and other sources of renewable energy are well catered for in
the 2007 Renewable Energy Policy,
which aimed to increase the use of
renewable energy from the 4 per cent
used then to 61 per cent of the total
energy consumption by 2017.
Mr Ndawula does not have updated
figures of the current energy mix, but
he does not think that the target will
be met. And part of the problem, he
says, is financing.

beneficiaries of a project that was run

by the donor-supported Solar Connect Association, acquired the cooker
in 2006. But Solar Connect no longer
has the financing to provide free
cookers to poor people and has been
transforming itself into a full-fledged
business selling solar cookers.
Something similar is happening
with biogas. Under the Uganda Domestic Biogas Programme, Heifer International, for five years since 2009,
subsidised rural farmers to build at
least 5,000 small biogas plants to
support cooking and lighting.
This programme, according to Ms
Edina Nyamwaka, the lead engineer
on the project, contributed, in kind,
Shs650,000 to each farmer who
wanted to build a biogas plant. The
plants cost between Shs1.58m and
Shs2.73m, depending on size.
With the ceasing of the donor funding at the end of the five years, Ms
Nyamwaka says, the programme has
now been restructured to become
completely commercial, with the
farmers having to foot the entire bill
for building the plants. All Heifer International does now is to train users
on how to operate and maintain the
biogas plants.
Mr Ndawula says the government
is teaming up with all such organisations, many times with the support
of donors, to sensitise the people on
why they need to move to using renewable energy sources for cooking.
But when this advice reaches
Ms Nakamattes family, the family will have a big decision to make
on whether to invest, say, in a solar
stove or biogas plant, especially considering that the initial investment
they may have to make is relatively
big.
If they elect to continue using firewood for the years to come as their
counterparts elsewhere use charcoal,
Uganda may inch closer to the firewood crisis that Eckholm predicted.

Source: Renewable Energy Policy

BY OKELLO STEPHEN

An elderly woman carries firewood on her back recently. PHOTO BY SAM CALEB OPIO
of vegetal waste in its biomass energy mix has not been pursued.
The National Environmental Management Authority (Nema) predicted
in a 2008 report that if the current
rate of exploitation of trees continues
at the same rate, Uganda will lose all
its natural forests by 2050.
The shortage that would result
from the lack of trees aside, the environmental implications of losing
all the natural forests would be immense.
The trend, therefore, must change.
And quickly. But changing it is a difficult task, especially since, according to the ministry of Energy, close
to 100 per cent of rural households
and 98 per cent of urban households
depend on firewood and charcoal,
respectively, to cook food and heat
water.
Arresting the disaster
On his table at the ministry of Energy headquarters in Kampala, Mr
Ndawula has documents that he says

contain plans to salvage the situation.

He spends his working day thinking
renewable energy.
Renewable sources of energy, he
says, are those that are replenished
continuously by natural processes,
including solar, hydropower, wind,
geothermal energy, organic wastes,
and wood.
He says whereas Uganda needs
to move away from using firewood
in the long run, it is still possible to
sustainably rely on it for decades to
come.
He says the main challenge is with
the technology Ugandans use to cook,
which leads to waste of wood.
The most common cooking device in the rural households is the
traditional three-stone fire, he says,
whose efficiency is very low; about
15 per cent.
Mr Ndawula says this method of
cooking is wasteful since most of the
heat from the firewood is dispersed
before it gets to the cooking pot.
To promote efficiency in using

wood fuel, Mr Ndawula says, the government is working closely with

the Biomass Efficient Technology Association (Beta), which, among other
things, promotes the use of energyefficient charcoal stoves.
By using energy-efficient charcoal
stoves, Mr Ndawula says, the amount
of charcoal used can be halved. The
ministry of Energy supports Beta to
train artisans who make the stoves
and popularise their use.
And the plan is much more elaborate. Mr Ndawula says the ministry
is looking at the entire value chain,
from how to fell trees to how to use
the trees for charcoal burning, transporting the charcoal and eventually
how the charcoal can be used most
efficiently.
The plan to ensure efficient use
of wood is embodied in a new document titled Biomass Energy Strategy,
which is due to be propped up by the
Energy Efficiency and Conservation
Bill that the government is readying
for tabling before Parliament.
To demonstrate the need for saving
wood, Mr Ndawula cites the activity
of charcoal burning. He says because
the technology used in charcoal burning is poor, charcoal burners only get
a maximum of 250kgs of charcoal out
of every 1000kgs of wood they burn.
He says the charcoal yield can be
much higher if the charcoal burners
first dried the wood before burning it
and used more efficient kilns to burn
the charcoal. He says the same is true
of burning bricks.
The Biomass Energy Strategy document also details how best to fell
trees to enable them to regenerate. It
discourages clearing entire patches
of forests or woodlands.
But in the forest in Coo-room
where Mr Kato and his colleagues
are operating, all the mature trees
are entirely cleared, leaving a bare
stretch of land.

Big plans
The big plans are in place but the
money to put them into practice most
of the time is not. The Renewable Energy Policy, for instance, envisaged
that Shs9 trillion ($3.5b) needed to
be invested in the sector over the 10
years to 2017.
Of this sum, it was projected that
the government would provide only
14 per cent, with the rest being contributed by the private sector.
Donors, especially NGOs and other
not-for-profit organisations, but
also through the government, have
played some part. But, most of the
time, the efforts do not make much
of an impact.
Take Imelda Nyangoma, a resident
of the refugee resettlement village
of Kikokwa in Mbarara District. She
tells us that she has almost not used
her solar cooker for over a month
now, because most of the days were
rainy with no sufficient sunshine to
provide solar poor. The solar power
cookers are incapable of storing energy and therefore one can only cook
when the sun is up.
Ms Nyangoma, being one of the