Decarbonising Kenya's domestic & industry Sectors through bioenergy: An assessment of biomass resource potential & GHG performances

Abstract

All countries are challenged with finding secure, affordable and clean energy options to drive sustainable development. Within many developing countries there is often strong reliance on traditional bioenergy from fuels such as charcoal, which is typically cheaper and readily available compared to fossil fuels. These fuels have large environmental impacts and place pressure on forests. Modern bioenergy using resources such as agricultural wastes and residues and through growing energy crops can provide alternative low carbon renewable energy opportunities. This research applies the Biomass Resource Model to explore potential bioenergy opportunities in Kenya. Attributional LCA analyses is undertaken to evaluate the potential GHG savings that may be achieved if briquettes produced from Kenyan biomass are used to replace fossil and traditional bioenergy fuels for household cooking and for industry. Kenyan agriculture can provide large opportunities for bioenergy - crop residues and animal wastes potentially providing up to 15.6 and 7.9 Mt (odt) by 2050. Implementing an energy crop planting strategy where 1% of available suitable lands are utilised by 2050 could produce >7 Mt of biomass fuels, rising to >36 Mt if 5% of lands were planted. Biomass briquette fuels could provide up to 8.01 TWh bioenergy for industry by 2050 – the GHG intensity of this energy being lower than that of the fossil fuels and significantly lower than that of the traditional biomass alternatives.