Making Money & Heat From Waste: Success Case Stories Briquetting Entrepreneurs

The sheer size of people living under energy poverty relates to the countless stories of human suffering globally. For example three billion people in the world today rely on traditional biomass and coal for cooking. For the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries, fuel costs represent a significant portion of their household budget. In Kenya, up to a third of household income is spent on energy. Although this seems addressed on most of urban and well-resourced regions of the country, recent statistics infer that it has not been easy for a majority of the population to access clean energy sources affordably. So they have resorted to utilizing the available biomass sources and kerosene — used by the largest majority of residents in urban and rural areas.

Practical action, an international development agency working with poor communities has been at the forefront in offering innovative, sustainable and practical technologies that improve lives. Among its other goals it aims at ensuring that there is Universal Access to Energy, a goal whose premise lies on the fact that 'access to modern energy services is a fundamental prerequisite for poverty reduction and sustainable development.