Dear Forum,

So I recently came back from the field trip in Kenya, with primary goal to visit our own existing customers who currently use our biogas systems primarily for Anaerobic digestion of cow manure.

Second on my agenda was to visit some biogas projects which are combined with sanitation solutions. I am sorry that I was not able to visit any of the sites mentioned by others in this thread. My trip planning was rather erratic and several technical issues made that I had only little time to cover a big area.

Doreen and James: Sorry I wasn't able to follow-up on your suggestions. Hopefully on a next trip I will be able to enforce more power over my own schedule

In any case, I was able to visit a site in near Eldoret were Duke university has installed 3 AD digesters linked to 3 squat toilets (forum.susana.org/forum/categories/105-pr...m-north-carolina-usa).
The digesters are located at three different sites. Every site has around 15-20 people using the toilets daily. The biogas produced from the collected excrements is used to heat the effluent-slurry to remove pathogens.

Foremost conclusions:

All users preferred the AD-toilets over the existing pit latrines for following reasons:
- Lack of (bad) smell
- Easy to clean thanks to the plastic squat toilets
- No flies

Biogas was produced!!
- Currently it is being used to heat the effluent to kill-off pathogens.
- It is unclear how much gas would be left over for cooking. We are working on this.
- users were willing to use the gas if it were made available

Effluent is currently discharged into an external gutter. But users did show interest in experimenting with using the effluent as possible fertilizer. Note that the effluent is sanitized through heating it up to 70 degrees celsius. Lab tests show that no pathogens survive such treatment.

Attached are some pictures of the Duke sanitation sites and also of some of our biogas systems which are installed and used by our customers.

Enjoy!

Dear Doreen,

Josiah has responded to me! So we are lined up for a visit.

My travel plans are not fully defined yet, still need to book a flight, and decide for a good moment to visit. It looks more like it will be somewhere beginning of December, as I already know that I have obligations here in NL until 26th of November.

I'll let you know once my schedule is more defined.

James,
I'll let you know as well once I have an idea when I will be in the neighborhood. I'd much appreciate it to come and visit the site at the university.

Thanks!

The facility within the university (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. We are located about 30 km North of the City of Nairobi. You are welcome.

Dear Vaniek,

Please contact Josiah Omotto of Umande Trust using the email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
When you will you be arriving in Kenya?

Best regards,

Doreen

Dear James,

that sounds great! Is it correct that the Biogas site is located in/nearby Nairobi or is it in Juja?

Also, could you specify if you use the biogas installation for sanitation or only for organic refuse.

Thanks!
Vaniek Colenbrander

We have a biogas facility in Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. Perhaps you come by and see what we are doing. The main person in the Biogas project is Eng. Charles Kabubo.

James Wambua

Dear Doreen,

great thank you so much! I have added them to my list of possible sites to visit. So hopefully I will be able to visit them.


I have contacted Umande last week, no reply yet though. Do you maybe have an email adress of one of their direct operators? Maybe that will work better than through the website email.

Kind regards,
Vaniek

Dear Vaniek,

I suggest you visit the following Gachoire Girls Secondary School and Naivasha Public Toilet which were constructed during the Ecosan Promotion Project.

Both however are not in Nairobi. If you want to visit some in Nairobi, please contact Umande Trust.

Contact me via email and I can be able to give you the telephone numbers of the operators.

Best regards,

Doreen

Dear Elisabeth,

Thanks for your kind reply.

SimGas is a for profit company, we sell our biogas systems to local individuals who are fed up with cooking on wood and charcoal. Thereby the cost price is returned to the user over a period of 2 years. We systems that can be used in (semi)urbanized areas, specifically adapted for solid organic waste streams from the kitchen and gardens. We also have a rural digester, adapted to handle cattle manure from cows and pigs but also on organic matter. This systems is mainly used by small scale farmers with 5 to 20 animals.

We are working together with Loowatt to adapted/redesign/re-develop our systems to be able to handle the refuse from the Loowatt toilets. The main challenge here is to create a safe and hygienic way to digest human feces.

I am responsible for the digester re-development.

I have chosen to limit my visit to Tanzania ans Kenya as we are operational in both countries. Thereby I can combine my visit to our facilities and also view other projects while I'm in the neighborhood. Indeed, we intend to expand our operations to neighboring countries in the future. For now, we are focusing on these two countries.

I am waiting on a reply from Ecotact, will contact the Umande trust for information and I was already planning to contact the Naivasha project, which I had already read about through the information on this great forum! And I´ll check out your links too!

Thanks and best regards,
Vaniek.

PS. please keep on sending me possible opportunities and links, and upon return I will try to post something of a trip review on the forum.

Hi Julius,

indeed a pity. But we have to draw the line somewhere

We do have connections with TAREA, so I'll see to tighten the bond there. That being said, as far as we know of, they do not have any sanitation+biogas projects that we know of.

Thanks anyhow!

Dear Vaniek,

Welcome to the forum! I had a look at your website, and it looks very interesting. What wasn't clear to me is: how is this funded? Is it a normal company or more like an NGO?
Could you please also clarify the connection to Loowatt?
(Loowatt has been presented here on the forum:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/98-res...tt-uk-and-madagascar)

Why did you choose in particular Kenya and Tanzania for your study trip? Rwanda and Uganda should also be relevant for biogas in Africa, I would have thought?

In Kenya, I can connect you with Doreen Mbalo from GIZ: they can show you some Decentralised Treatment Units (basically like the BORDA DEWATS systems) which they built as part of the Ecosan Promotion Program and which are still going well (some of them; others are being rehabilitated as we speak).

See for example this one in Naivasha which is still going well now, Doreen told me:
www.susana.org/lang-en/case-studies?view...peitem&type=2&id=131

Doreen also writes on the forum, so I will see if she can add more information here.

Two more organisations that come to mind in Kenya are Ecotact and Umande Trust (they are SuSanA partners, see www.susana.org/partners), I think they also work on biogas systems.

Please do let us know what comes out of your interesting fact-finding mission.

Regards,
Elisabeth

P.S.
I don't know if you saw these threads already, but we have spoken about these biogas units in Kenya previously here on the forum:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/35-bio...w-switches-to-biogas
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/35-bio...s-any-best-practices
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/35-bio...enyan-primary-school

Hello Vaniek

A pity that you are not planning to come here to Uganda, but on the other hand there aren't that many really interesting biogas activities here as far as I know.

A colleague of mine is working with TAREA in Tanzania however: www.tarea-tz.org/ whom I can get you in contact with if Simgas is not already working with them (somehow I remember that to be the case).