The Government of Nepal has been providing subsidies to promote biogas technology since the 1970s and Solar Home Systems (SHS) since the 1990s. This study uses nationally representative survey data to examine the extent to which these subsidies benefitted the rural poor.

This is a chapter in a book entitled “Bioenergies in East Africa between challenges and opportunities” Edited by Marco Setti, Daria Zizzola 2016.

Biogas as a technology and the factors that affect its productivity have both been well studied. Research has previously been done to look at the impact of temperature, pH, organic loading rate, carbon-to-nitrogen ratios, microbial populations and hydraulic retention time on different scales of biogas operations. Small scale biogas installations, of which many millions have been constructed and seem to be performing well, have been chosen as the area of focus for this paper. Such systems allow energy generation on site, thereby eliminating the need for energy intensive transport.