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Projects : From Firewood to Biogas in Nepal

The Nepalese government launched a programme in which households can benefit from state subsidies and technical support for the purchase and installation of biogas digesters and gas fired cooking stoves. Climate Focus is supporting the implementing agency in developing this initiative as a CDM Programme of Activities.

In Nepal the consumption of firewood far exceeds its annual production, causing deforestation. Over the last years AEPC, a state agency for promotion of use of renewable energy sources, developed a programme in which rural households can use manure from their cattle to produce biogas for cooking. The programme is called the  Biogas Support Programme Nepal.

The system consists of a 4 to 8 m³ manure digester and a gas fired cooking stove. From the manure of three to four pieces of cattle, a digester can produce enough gas to cook for 3.5 hours on a single stove. By providing an alternative to the use firewood, the programme reduces deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. The use of biogas rather than firewood reduces emissions per household by around 2 tonnes CO₂e per year.  Although the biogas digesters provide an interesting alternative for the use of firewood, it also requires a serious investment by the rural population. State subsidies and carbon finance make the technology accessible.

CDM Programme of Activities (PoA) allow programmes like the Biogas Support Programme, to benefit from carbon finance. Under a PoA, individual projects can be added any moment after the programme has been registered under the CDM. With new households joining every year, the Biogas Support Programme has a constantly growing portfolio of households using the digester technology, thus gradually expanding the capacity of this CDM project to generate carbon credits.

Climate Focus supported the Biogas Support Programme by structuring and designing it to meet PoA requirements, optimising creation of carbon credits, developing the CDM registration documents, developing surveys for quantifying the use of wood fuel and providing assistance during validation.

You can download all the documents related to the Nepal Biogas Support Program-PoA via UNFCCC website by following this link.