Mini assessment of small-scale biogas technology practices, opportunities, and challenges in Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Rural households in Ethiopia are dependent on biomass for their energy needs, and this exacerbates deforestation. Therefore, building small-scale biogas is one of the means of abating these challenges. The objective of this study was to assess the practices, opportunities, and challenges of small-scale biogas technology dissemination in the Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia. To achieve this objective, fifty-six informants were selected from the seven districts of Hadiya Zone, and semi-structured questionnaires and field observations were used as the instruments to collect the data. This survey revealed that small-scale biogas technology in the study area is recent, and it needs certain requirements. Additionally, due to the stopped feeding, most of the biogas plants were non-functional. Likewise, analysis of variance indicated that there was a significant difference (p < 0.05) (p = 0.009) between the challenges that hinder the distribution of small-scale biogas technology. As a result, the high installation cost was taken as the main factor that affected its distribution. In addition, the presence of many cattle and optimum climate are among the important opportunities to expand biogas distribution in the study area. Therefore, farmers should use the available opportunity and minimize the challenges to increase the distribution of biogas technology in the study area.