Small biogas plants in India, Environmentally friendly cooking
COOKING WITH BIOGAS INSTEAD OF WOOD SAVES TIME, RAW MATERIALS AND reduces carbon emissions.
As part of the carbon reduction project "Small biogas plants for Bagepalli", we are building small biogas plants together with the local families. These are fed with cow dung and water and are used to generate biogas, e.g. for cooking.
PROJECT FACTS
LOCATION:
Bagepalli, Indien
PROJECT START:
2010
PROJECT DEVELOPER:
Bagepalli Coolie Sangha (BCS)
FairClimateFund (FCF) – The Netherlands
EXTERNAL VERIFIER:
TÜV NORD CERT GmbH
Carbon Check (India) Private Limited
DNV Climate Change Services AS
QUALITY STANDARDS:
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
Gold Standard VER (GS VER)
ANNUAL CO2-REDUCTION:
approx. 21.000 t CO2
PROJECT DOCUMENTATION:
https://registry.goldstandard.org/projects/details/1182
ProjeCt bENEFITS
- The Bagepalli small-scale biogas project saves around 21,000 tons of carbon emissions per year
- Emissions that are normally caused by burning wood are avoided
- Protection and slow recovery of local forests by reducing the consumption of firewood
- Households save the money and time they used to need to procure fuel
- The "waste" from the biogas plants can ultimately be used as fertilizer
- No smoke, no noxious fumes in the houses
- Clean air: less respiratory diseases and eye infections
- New jobs: training of specialists for the maintenance and servicing of the biogas plants
- Women have more time: some have opened small shops
- 240 women have been trained to maintain the biogas plants and earn an additional income
Project Background
In many rural households in India, simple open fires are used to cook indoors. This requires a lot of wood and harmful smoke is generated. Respiratory diseases and eye infections are very common, especially among women and children.
Our carbon reduction project in Karnataka promotes small biogas plants for private households. Biogas is produced from cow dung and organic household waste. This allows families to cook without hesitation.
There is no smoke development, as well as the laborious gathering of wood: many women and children were previously doing this for about one day a week. Now they have more time to work and study.
Because they also protect the forests and reduce carbon emissions by not burning any more wood, the project can be maintained through carbon financing. The families have to tackle the installation of the system themselves. 18,000 such systems have already been built, each with a capacity of 2 cubic meters.
How does climate action with biogas work?
In biogas plants, biomass ferments to biogas in airtight digestion tanks. Biomass can consist of organic waste, the remains of cows or other animals.
In countries like India, families use the gas from small biogas plants primarily for cooking. This reduces the carbon emissions that would result from cooking with wood or charcoal.
Biogas plants also prevent methane from entering the atmosphere - as is the case when storing organic waste in a pit. Instead, the resulting gas is fed directly from the closed container to the hotplates.
contribution to the UN sustainability goals
Project Quality standards
Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was launched as part of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. The CDM can not only be used for voluntary emissions offsetting, but also for state climate action programs. Therefore, governments, companies and private individuals alike can acquire the certified emission credits from CDM projects (= Certified Emission Reductions, CERs) and use them for their respective climate action purposes.
