From cattle dung to renewable energy with biogasTo many known as the home to the Mount Everest, Nepal is characterised by rural and farming regions. Hence, many Nepalis live in rather remote areas, relying mostly on firewood for cooking. Especially for families with farms, this project provides a good opportunity to replace the traditional way of cooking – which releases high amount of CO2 emissions – with modern biogas technology. By feeding cattle dung mixed with water into the biogas digesters, biogas is produced through anaerobic digestion and directly fed to the stoves.
In 55 districts of Nepal a total of 9,688 small biogas digesters have been installed and supply affordable and renewable energy to rural households. With needing less firewood the project helps to decrease deforestation and saves about 35,350 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. Families also save time for wood collecting, benefit from less smoke inside their homes and can use the residual biological slurry from the biogas unit as organic fertilizers.