Why Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) may not address clean cooking challenges

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OPINION

By Patrick Edema

Currently, the Ugandan government is actively investing in and promoting the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a cleaner cooking fuel. This includes distributing free LPG starter kits and working with partners to improve access and affordability. The goal is to reduce reliance on biomass fuels like firewood and charcoal, which contribute to deforestation and indoor air pollution.

Last year, 2024, the government signed a landmark Supply and Purchase Agreement with Global Gases Group to establish a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage facility and cylinder manufacturing and filling plants in Luzira. This initiative is also part of the country’s broader push to reduce reliance on biomass for cooking and to promote clean energy.

The project, expected to be operational by 2026. It's noted that the company will invest, construct, own and operate an LPG cylinder manufacturing plant, cylinder filling stations and distribution centres in different locations across the country.

In addition, Uganda’s oil companies are also involved in LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) projects in Uganda, specifically as part of the larger Lake Albert development project. The Tilenga project, operated by TotalEnergies, and the Kingfisher project, operated by CNOOC, are expected to produce LPG as part of their oil and gas production. 

In the same vein, the country’s Energy Transition Plan (ETP) also focuses on establishing an energy system needed to support Uganda’s rapid economic development through providing universal access to electricity and clean cooking in line with SDG7. This expansive ETP agenda holds the promise that its future energy system will look very different from today, with universal access to electricity and to clean cooking achieved by 2030.

However, today, only less than 15% of the population has access to cleaner cooking technologies. Around 95% of the population primarily cook with solid biomass such as wood, charcoal and other fuels.

The 2024 National Population and Household Census indicated that more than 6.5 million households, representing 64.5% which is about six in ten households, use wood to cook, followed by more than 2.8 million households, at about 28.3% using charcoal and 117,729 households representing 1.1% using electricity, while 115,933 households use LPG. 

In 2022, the government launched a drive to distribute at least one million Liquefied Petroleum Gas cylinders and burners to Ugandans in a bid to use of clean energy. The sh900 billion LPG promotion, supply and infrastructure intervention aimed at targeting Ugandans to convert to LPG for cooking from 1% to 20% by 2030 at the household level.

However, few Ugandans have the capacity to sustain the refilling of the LPG cylinders. This has convinced Ugandans to continue depending on charcoal and firewood to meet their energy needs. The UBOS 2024 report indicates that 16.1% of the population still live below the poverty line, meaning they nearly 2.1 million households within the money economy that still cannot afford cleaner alternatives.

Uganda’s energy transition plan estimates that an annual investment of $100 million is needed to achieve universal clean cooking access by 2030. Such funding is critical to reducing indoor air pollution, linked to approximately 50,000 premature deaths yearly, as well as curbing deforestation. Households currently spend up to two hours daily collecting firewood.

Unfortunately, Uganda’s clean energy access will remain a dream if the government is still prioritising oil and gas. These investments risk locking the country into a high-carbon pathway, imperilling the economic future and the global climate efforts. First, after decades of continually rising carbon emissions, there shouldn’t be room for more fossil fuels of any type.

In other words, we have missed the opportunity to cross by bridge, but we don’t actually need one anyway. Besides, gas is more like a wall than a bridge, impeding rather than enabling the energy transition because over 65% of the people live in rural areas where decentralised renewable energy is a better, cheaper option for electrification.

Therefore, providing clean cooking fuels for the over 25 million people relying on dangerous solid biomass is an urgent priority, but costly plans to expand natural gas connections to residential consumers may prove obsolete as the cost of renewables.

The transition to clean cooking technologies, such as improved biomass cookstoves and electric stoves, can significantly improve health issues and reduce premature deaths by limiting exposure to harmful indoor smoke, which disproportionately impacts women and children.

The government must therefore put in place targeted policies, including solar energy policy, Consumer Protection and Management law, like the recently launched national Energy Policy and the National Clean Cooking Strategy, which includes provisions for all relevant clean cooking technologies tailored to different consumer categories and locations.

The writer is an Environmental Engineer