Tracking the progress towards adopting LPG as a clean cooking fuel in Rwanda: User's perspective

Abstract

Many households in Rwanda rely on firewood and charcoal for cooking with inefficient-burning stoves. To mitigate the issue of cooking with traditional fuels, the government of Rwanda has promoted the use of alternative energy such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).This study aims to assess the determinants behind the transition from traditional biomass to clean cooking technology in Rwanda and analyzes the consumers' preferences in choosing cooking fuels. A self-administered questionnaire was employed to collect data to people living in urban areas in Rwanda through simple random sampling method. A total of 460 valid responses were then collected, which were subsequently analyzed using statistical analysis with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Excel.The results showed a progress in adopting LPG fuel for households' cooking, despite biomass fuel still accounting a high rate of household's users. The results also revealed that fuels stacking is a common practice among households where half of the respondents cook with LPG as a primary cooking fuel, with predominance of charcoal as the secondary cooking fuel choice. Meanwhile, the study also identified high cost of stoves and fuels as well as safety risks as major barriers hindering the choice of LPG as primary cooking fuel and finally provided some policy recommendations to increase the adoption of LPG.This study fills the gap in literature and may assist in policy formulation to accelerate the uptake of LPG as a primary cooking fuel in Rwanda.