More households to be connected to TPDC's natural gas for domestic use

Dodoma. Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) will - next month - start rolling out a project of connecting upcountry households to its natural gas network as the country promotes usage of clean energy sources, the Parliament heard this morning.

The project - which entails using natural gas as source of energy for cooking and other domestic needs - has been undertaken on pilot stage in Dar es Salaam since 2009 and according to the Deputy Minister for Water and Irrigation, Mr Isack Kamwelwe, so far it has been successful.

"So far, three hotels, one garage, 70 houses and 36 factories in Dar es Salaam use natural gas (as source of energy)," he said when answering a question.

Mr Kamwelwe was responding to a question from Dr Pundesiana Kikwembe (Kavuu -CCM) who wanted to know what the government was doing to promote the use of clean and alternative energy sources so as to reduce the use of environmentally-unfriendly charcoal and firewood.

According to Mr Kamwelwe, TPDC has already completed a feasibility study for the construction of the relevant infrastructure in all areas of Dar es Salaam, Mtwara and Lindi.

"The project of distributing natural gas across the three regions will start next year (2018) and will be completed during the financial year 2020/21," he said.

A total of 50,410 households will be reached in the project which will cost a total of $126.959 million (about Sh283 billion) to complete.

Meanwhile, the government is also considering promoting usage of other energy sources, including human faeces - taken from pit latrines - as a possible source of energy for domestic usage, Mr Kamwelwe said.