Alternative Source of Green Energy for Marginalised Groups in Kenya: An SDG Agenda 2030 Requirement

Abstract

The commonly used form of energy for cooking, heating or small-scale industries by most households in Kenya are firewood, charcoal, and fossil fuel at 93 per cent. This group of people seems to be marginalized since the use of this forms of energy attracts a lot of interest on public health, environment, and rural development. The problem here is that the sector is handled by the informal sector, thus, there is scarcity and uncertainty of wood energy data which could contribute to economy like green energy. Moreover, 18,000 deaths are experienced annually due to indoor air pollution from cooking and heating using wood and fossil fuel energy. This paper underscores the alternative source of green energy from water hyacinth in the form of charcoal briquette which is carbon free, there are two forms of biomass briquette, Carbonized and Non-carbonized, this study considers carbonized briquette where biomass undergoes pyrolysis the process of converting dried water hyacinth at 350 C-500 C in a finer fabricated biomass carbonizer mixed with binding agent to stick before it is pressed to form briquette. The study is secondary data (desktop) research, the method used to collect data was by use of existing research data. When the destructive water hyacinth is put under production of charcoal briquette which is green and carbon free energy it promotes SDG Agenda 2030 by reducing mortality rates among the marginalized due to indoor air pollution and creation of socio-economic empowerment among the young people through employment and enterprise growth.