Small Scale Energy Systems Construction and Maintenance Management through Program Decentralization: A Case Study of the Rwanda Domestic Biogas Program
Ndahimana Anaclet1, Gwaya Abednogo2, Diang’a Stephen3
1Ndahimana Anaclet, Bachelor’s of Science in Civil Engineering and Environmental Technology, KIST, Msc. Construction Project Management, (Ongoing), JKUAT.
2Dr. Abednogo Gwaya, B.A(Bldg.Econ).U.O.N, MSc Civil Eng. Makerere. Ph.D (Const. Eng. & Mngt).JKUAT.
3Dr. Stephen Diang’a, (Ph.D, Durban University).Member of BORAQS, Housing and Urban Planning, Architecture.
Manuscript received on June 01, 2019. | Revised Manuscript received on June 10, 2019. | Manuscript published on June 15, 2019. | PP: 22-30 | Volume-5, Issue-12, June 2019. | Retrieval Number: L11260651219/19©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: An energy system is a system primarily designed to supply energy-services to end-users. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fifth Assessment Report defines an energy system as “all components related to the production, conversion, delivery, and use of energy”. To this end, Domestic biogas constructions have a direct positive effect on rural peoples’ energy supply, environment, health and agricultural production. In fact, Construction companies construct 4, 6, 8, and 10 m3 Biogas plants that can solve cooking issues at household level. To date, 40 biogas construction companies and 21 biogas construction cooperatives have been conducting the biogas business in all the 30 administrative Districts of Rwanda. These biogas plants are operated through digestion of cattle dung, but also toilets can also be attached for sanitation purpose. Effective domestic biogas construction and maintenance management needs a program that oversees its deployment in rural areas. In these programs, multiple actors at different levels cooperate on the basis of proper institutional arrangements to provide access to sustainable energy for rural households raising livestock. The government implements the domestic biogas program through REG (Rwanda Energy Group), which provides subsidies for biogas constructions. From 2006 to 2013, the biogas was centralized and managed essentially from REG, Kigali office. Prior to the decentralization, the rural people were still underserved and some of the installed biogas digesters constructed were non-operational. However, since beginning of 2014, the biogas program decentralization has been initiated. To this regard, the 30 administrative Districts of Rwanda started taking the lead in its implementation. In addition, in a drive to bring proximity services to the beneficiaries District biogas youth-led cooperatives were established, with youth masons from all the 416 administrative sectors of Rwanda, this in a drive to complement existing biogas companies or bring biogas construction and maintenance services in some District with no private companies operating in this specific sector. Therefore, this research study will aim at determining if the biogas program decentralization from central level to Districts has contributed to more biogas constructions, thus increased access to energy by rural people. But also, if decentralization contributed to better maintenance of existing plants through improved services to beneficiaries. The target population will be the Rwanda Energy Group, District and biogas private company’s staff who will be interviewed. In addition, a survey will be conducted for rural households already owning a biogas plant. At the end, the study should be able to determine whether there decentralization of the biogas program has led to closing gaps compared to the previous centralized system and if the decentralization has led to an increased number of domestic biogas constructions and better maintenance of existing biogas constructions. The study would be able to provide recommendations that would be applied in order to further improve the domestic biogas program, but also come out with a model that could be replicated for other Small Scale Energy systems
Keywords: Energy systems, Program, Decentralization, Effective, Construction, Maintenance services.