The Initiative Développement (ID) China program's goal is to improve local living conditions and environment for rural deprived populations, especially ethnic minorities, in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces through the access to clean and sustainable energy (biogas and improved cookstove, ICS). Biogas and ICS represents an important potential for sustainable development and preservation of the environment as well as for improvement of indoor air and health. ID’s biogas projects have been implemented in Guizhou province since 2005 and in Yunnan province since 2009. Since the beginning of 2007, more than 3500 households have benefited from our energy access project. The considerable advantages drawn in terms of health, hygiene, sanitation, development, and environment led us to rapidly expand the project.
Contact Information
Our Focus
Presently, ID is working on biogas in China, focusing on deprived rural populations. All of them are farmers. For the time being, we are focusing on training centers. We generally work with small scale projects with the aim of experimenting, improving the technique and its appropriation. We work as much as possible with local partners which, after a certain amount of time, can take over the activities. The success of our 2 pilot project in China (1300 biodigesters in Guizhou and 1200 biodigesters in Yunnan) enabled us to change scale thanks to the support of the French Development Agency and the French Global Environment Facility. Instead of doing directly the construction of biodigesters ourselves, we work with government on improving management practices thanks to carbon finance. In Yunnan we work in Qujing on 24000 biodigesters project (GS998) besides in Sichuan we contribute to the development of a Programme of Activity that will target 800 000 households in the next decade.
We also develop our activities in Africa, we are preparing energy access projects (biogas, ICS,...) in the Comoros, Chad and Congo Brazzaville.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
In China, there are no special barriers in the introduction of biogas. The difficulty is in making the project durable. Very often, the populations neglect management and maintenance. In order to face that situation, we focus our efforts on training, long term follow-up and the creation of biogas committees.
Our work is in line with the products sold by many firms which produce equipment and fittings for biogas infrastructures. We support this industrial channel. Family biogas infrastructure is not affordable for poor families, but if construction is partly subsidized, they are then able to buy the spare parts.
Biogas is already quite standardized. Nonetheless, many NGOs, Industries, and Research centers work on the improvement of design, technology, etc. Besides in China, there are a certain number of standards very close from one province to another. As for ID, standardization is a condition for the diffusion of this technology.
ID has developed a comprehensive monitoring process which assess not only the fuel saving but also other impacts of the project on sustainable development such as the improvement of hygiene, the saving on fuel purchase, qualitative improvement of indoor air quality, local job creation. We do this monitoring on 260 households randomly selected, twice per year. The result are independently verified by the Gold Standard.
Relevant Publications or Studies
None noted
Our Contribution to the Partnership
ID can share its experiences and its skills in biogas and cook-stove projects. We have successfully registered two projects under the Gold Standard (GS614 and GS689) and issued VER carbon credits. We are now working with various organizations in Asia to help them access to carbon financing for their biogas/cokstove projects (GS998, GS1011, GS1074). As an NGO our aim is also to spread our experience and the good practices we learned, we are ready to work with other partners to help them get carbon funding for such projects.
