Access to clean and affordable energy is an important determinant in the livelihoods of all rural and urban people, however, only a few have access to an adequate gas supply for cooking and other productive purposes.
Those who have not been blessed with the access to this valuable resource depend on the use of a wide range of biomass such as firewood, and agriculture residues such as jute stick, leaves, rice husk, sawdust, cow dung which are not thermally efficient and result in creating smoke in the kitchens. Moreover, the use of firewood is aggravating another major environmental crisis – deforestation. The overexploitation of wood is contributing to deforestation causing an adverse effect on the ecosystem, and the environment and climate at large. This has led to the need for an innovation that can potentially deal with these issues from an eco-friendly lens.
The Practical Action team in Bangladesh, with support from GIZ and SREDA (Sustainable and Renewable Energy Development Authority), have devised an intuitive innovation – the conversion of biomass into briquette, a block of compressed flammable organic material used as fuel – to address the aforementioned issues. Briquette significantly increases thermal efficiency, reduces smoke and the cost of cooking fuel, in the most reductive terms. Not only does it have a thermal efficiency higher than traditional biomass, and emit less smoke, through this innovation we have essentially transformed “waste” into a useful resource and in that, alleviated its value by manifolds. It has also made way for a solid source of livelihood where women can be involved in its backward (raw material supply) and forward (market development of finished products) production.
Throughout the duration of this project, the team worked with several medium and large scale briquette producers and increased their technical and business management capacity and created linkage with a wide range of biomass suppliers and distributors to reach a wide range of clients i.e households, institutional and commercial. The comparative pros and cons of the use of briquettes from at least three to four different biomasses were also assessed under this intervention.
One of the briquette producers under this intervention was Mostak Ahmed from Siddik Sanitation, a veteran in the biofuel stove manufacturing industry who has previously worked with organizations like USAID, GIZ. He wholeheartedly acknowledged Practical Action’s efforts. He said that he did not understand “efficiency” and all those big jargons, but what he understood was the satisfaction of his customers, whether their needs were met, and that was his only prime concern. He expressed that with support from Practical Action and GIZ, he could further his stride on bringing optimum utility to his customers.
Another one of the briquette producers was Josna Begum from Kheya (Samaj Unnayan Sangstha) who appreciated how this initiative has reduced the work load of the women, by eliminating the need for them to forage for firewood, which is not only cumbersome but also poses risks. She felt that this initiative has empowered women, in that, they not only now have the opportunity to network with each other, but they can also spend a nice time with each other and share their daily woes and joys. They could venture out and develop their marketing skills, which eventually led to a multiplier effect and encouraged more women to do something on their own as well.
The project namely “Innovations in Briquette Business for Clean Cooking Energy” under this intervention, implemented in Rangpur and Satkhira from July 2018 to December 2019, by Practical Action, GIZ and SREDA recently concluded. A learning sharing workshop was organized on 25 March 2019 to disseminate the lessons, successes, and challenges of the project. All the beneficiaries of the project shared their experience on how this project has helped them stride ahead and that they would love to receive more support in the future as well.