Socio-Economic Factors Influencing Use and Adoption of Family-Sized Bio-digesters as Renewable Energy Sources in Ngoma District, Rwanda
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Date
2018-05-25
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Preprints (www.preprints.org)
Abstract
1) Background: The environmental, financial and social questions in Africa remain unanswered
up-to-date, with the rapid increase in human population and the demand for fuel energy, trigger
the need to generate data on the socio-economic factors influencing the knowledge of use and
adoption of family-sized bio-digesters. The increasing prices of fossil fuels and taxes on energy
sources require finding the alternative, clean and economical sources of energy for households in
developing countries. Moreover, in Africa, the consumption of firewood and charcoal continues
to increase, with wood fuel consumption predicted to increase by 2030 to over 140%. The study
objectives were 1) to determine the socio-economic characteristics of the people in Ngoma
district, 2) to assess socio-economic factors influencing people to use and adopt family-sized biodigesters.
2) Methods: Quantitative data collected with semi-structured questionnaires and interviews were
analyzed using descriptive statistics.
3) Results: The results show that many households had not realized the potential benefits of
biogas use and adoption in Rwanda. The study further found that a number of factors such as
household income levels, socio-economic, technological, and institutional influence the
household use and adoption of biogas energy.
4) Conclusions: At the end, the study suggests the need for all players such as Government,
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) and local communities to work together to provide
incentives and favorable environment that can attract individual households to invest in biogas
energy production and utilization.
Description
Keywords
Bio-digesters, Household income levels, Renewable energy, Socio-Economic