Rural household energy consumption in the millennium villages in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper summarizes the main findings regarding household energy use from nearly 3000 households across 10 different rural agro-ecological locations in Sub-Saharan Africa. The data were collected with a baseline energy survey as part of the Millennium Villages Project, a multi-sectoral development effort. The results document the households reliance on biomass and other traditional fuels across all project sites. The two most commonly used fuels for cooking were fuelwood and farm residue, representing 74% and 12% of all cooking respectively. Fuelwood was used primarily for cooking, and mostly acquired through collection by women on foot. Eighty-six percent of household cooks reported using kerosene, and 80% of this use was for lighting. Kerosene provided 61% of the lighting hours on average, followed by dry cell batteries, at 18%. Although one site, Ikaram, Nigeria, had extensive household grid electricity access, only 1% of households in all other sites had an electric grid connection. Averaged across all households surveyed, households spent USD 58 per year on fuels and USD 19 per year on batteries. Of these expenses. USD 21 went to cooking-related purchases and USD 48 went to purchases related to lighting and electricity. (C) 2012 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.