What is up with biomass energy in Namibia?

By Robert Schultz, R3E Manager

Before getting into this, the terminology needs clarification, as the word “biomass energy” leaves a blank look on the faces of the uninitiated. And who can blame them? I feel the same when I hear “Logical Framework Analysis” or “Clean Development Mechanism”. And no, the acronym does not help!

Biomass energy refers to energy derived from organic matter. To be specific, biomass energy is energy derived from wood. “Biomass” itself includes not only wood, but also its derivatives such as charcoal, as well as Bio-gas, Bio-diesel and Bio-petrol (Ethanol). Technically even fuel bricks compressed from old newspapers can be classified as biomass.

So what is up with wood energy in Namibia?

For starters, Namibia is the driest African country south of the Sahara. It is classified as 16% arid and 69% semi-arid, with 70% of its rural population depending on wood for its thermal needs. This results in an annual consumption of about 200 million tonnes, indicating that there is a definite problem looming on the horizon in terms of over-consumption.

To counter this Namibia has developed a national Biomass Energy Management Program-me aimed at alleviating the problem through awareness raising, community-based forestry programmes and the production and dissemination of wood-efficient stoves. A recent evaluation (available from R3E) of the programme indicates that several stove producers trained under the programme are still operational and economically self-sustaining. Their sales figures remain too low, however, to be a truly lucrative business. R3E has submitted a small-scale proposal to the Ministry of Mines & Energy (MME) that addresses marketing the stoves through agricultural, hardware and camping retail stores. This should expand the market beyond that of rural households in communal areas and will include households on commercial farms and tour operators. The project is scheduled to kick off before the Christmas holiday season.

A project of significant size, the “UNDP/MME Biomass Energy Conservation Strategy and Management Tool” will also commence towards the end of 2002. With financial support from UNDP and co-funding from MME, the project lists several key deliverables, including a Key Issues Paper, a Strategy Paper, a Geographic Information Sys-tem (GIS) -based Management Tool and Biomass Energy Re-source Map.

The Management Tool will monitor forest utilisation and consolidate the information with other development initiatives (roads, power lines, water-storage dams, etc), environmental factors (bush fires, invader species, rainfall, etc), energy-related data (location and statistics of biogas digesters, solar villages, renewable energy resources, etc) and further proposed developments (expansion of towns, conservancies, game reserves, emergency grazing areas, etc).

In essence this project will pave the way towards informed and equitable decision-making in regards to the conservation and sustainable utilisation of biomass energy resources in Namibia.

Namibia is a member of the regional network “Programme for Biomass Energy Conservation” (ProBEC), along with Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho. Participation in regional networks is of great value and a number of regional activities are planned for the near future. They include a workshop on stove technologies (aimed at consolidating the various stove designs and reaching consensus on a small number of stoves with regional applicability and appropriateness) that was held in South Africa in March 2003 and an International Biomass Energy Conservation Symposium 2004 to be held at the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre (GTRC) in the Namib Desert.

While ProBEC is supported by the GTZ, increased self-sufficiency of the regional network is imperative and is a priority for the national partners.

In summary, Namibia is putting great emphasis on the preservation and sustainable utilisation of wood fuel and is also investigating viable alternatives (bio-gas, wood fuel gasification). This awareness greatly complements the national drive towards rural electrification and “energisation”. At this juncture some important stakeholders need to be acknowledged for their unwavering commitment to the task: the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia (DRFN) and the Ministries of Mines & Energy Agriculture, Water & Rural Development and Environment & Tourism

This article appeared in the 2003/4 edition of Conservation and the Environment in Namibia.