Nigerian company pulling its weight to lessen power woes

In a country facing electricity woes and a large population unable to meet the financial demands of electricity, one Nigerian man, Yahaya Ahmed designs kitchen stoves made to save energy.

The stoves are made out of stainless steel and have a lifespan of up to 10 years.

The stove parts are imported from Germany and it takes about 20 minutes to put them together.

“You will be feeding the stove with twigs of wood, one or two pieces at a time. So by the time you put about four or five pieces, whatever you have here will be boiling,” said Ahmed as he demonstrated how to use the stove.

Ahmed is taking advantage of the fact that wood fuel remains one of Africa’s main energy sources.

What is however the downside is that while people like Ahmed are trying to make a living out of projects like his, deforestation in the country is taking place in an unprecedented way.

“Most of the wood we chop here are from our woodlands, we burn them so we are literally burning our forests and there’s a very simple means of reducing this because if you ask the people why are they cutting down the trees and is it not bad for the environment, they’ll tell you they know but they don’t have alternative. Kerosene is expensive for some people especially during the time of fuel crisis. Very few people can afford gas that’s if at all they even know how to use it. Electricity, how many people cook with electricity? So you see most of the people depend on the biomass and this is causing a lot of environmental hazards for us,” said Ahmed Yahaya, founder of local NGO – Development Association for Renewable Energies.

Despite the negative impact on the environment, Ahmed’s company is looking into introducing wood stoves to more homes across the country.

With an investment of 79,236 U.S. dollars, the company was able to setup and since the project started in 2005 they have produced over 37,000 wood stoves.