In Tanzania, mains electricity is mostly produced by a mixture of hydropower and burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas. Hydropower does not emit carbon dioxide, but gas does, and oil is even worse than gas. By reducing your electricity use, you can reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
The biggest use of energy is in heating or cooling. In Dar, that means the most important things to consider are building design, avoiding air conditioning, cooking efficiently, solar water heating and reducing use of and ensuring efficiency of irons and fridges/freezers.
Building and plot
Building cooling – If you are in a position to choose or build a home – choose/build a home with natural ventilation (for example courtyards and arab-style design) and leave any mature trees standing outside to increase shade. The beautiful old buildings which were built in Dar es Salaam before air-conditioning was invented were designed in this way – let’s learn from that! Most Dar es Salaam residents live and work without air conditioning. Fans also use electricity, but much less than air-conditioning. If you do have air-conditioning or fans, turn them off when not in use, use them for limited times, and turn them off completely during cooler seasons.
Building materials – Reduce your use of cement which has high emissions both chemically and due to fossil fuel use – do you really need the walls of your compound to be solid cement? Consider a bamboo fence or wire fence and growing a hedge through it instead! Locally sourced stone and chokaa (lime mortar) are options with lower carbon emissions.
Garden and trees! – If you have bought a plot for your home or business, and the plot has mature trees on it – don’t cut them down – they took decades to grow! Choose the placement of the buildings you are building so as to minimize the trees you cut down. Leave as much natural vegetation as you can. If there are no trees, plant them! The trees will provide shade and a beautiful environment for your building, they absorb carbon dioxide, and their leaves are nutrients for the soil.
Cooking
Cooking has environmental impacts – the production of wood charcoal for Dar es Salaam involves deforestation; kerosene and gas are fossil fuels (kerosene is worse than gas); and electricity is partially produced using fossil fuels.
Charcoal produced from agricultural waste instead of wood, or charcoal produced from sustainably managed forests, can be good options. Companies exploring this include “Mkaa Mkombozi” “Mkaa Mbadala” and “Mkaa wa Idris”. If cooking with charcoal, use an efficient charcoal stove such as “Jiko Bora”.
Cooking in well-designed efficient wood stoves using branches (not cutting down whole trees) is a good option. You can get more information about efficient wood and charcoal stoves in Tanzania from TaTEDO organisation.
You can increase the raw food content of your diet, cook for lots of people at once and use efficient cookers.
Consider getting a pressure cooker pot – these are great for foods such as potatoes, beans, rice and vegetables – you cook for a short while until steam starts coming out, then you put on the cork and leave the gas/electricity on for just a few more minutes before turning off the gas/electricity, and the pressure cooker pot keeps cooking your food even after the gas/electricity is off for another while! (you can even hear the cooking happening).
Cook with lids to retain heat, and don’t cook for unnecessarily long times. Soak beans overnight before cooking to shorten cooking times. If not eating immediately, keep your food warm by putting it in an insulated hot-pot. If you make tea or coffee, don’t boil more water than you need and put it in a thermos flask.
Water heating
Water heating for showers – Most people in Dar es Salaam shower/wash in water which is not heated and it is perfectly possible to do this in our climate. If you do want to shower in hot water – purchase a solar water heater. These are amazing devices which heat water to high temperatures using only the heat of the sun, with no carbon emissions at all, and work really well in warm sunny climates like ours. They will even save you money over time – no more using gas or electricity to heat water for showers!
Electricity
PV Solar panels, not generators! PV solar panels for electricity are becoming increasingly affordable, and emit no carbon dioxide in use. Oil generators are costly, noisy, pollute the local air and emit a lot of carbon dioxide – avoid having a generator and use solar PV for backup instead. Consider durability of batteries when you buy – good quality solar batteries are essential. Solar panels themselves work for decades without any need for repair or replacement, but if the battery is poor quality, it may need repair or replacement. Solar systems range from large systems which can power appliances like fridges and fans, to medium systems which can power your lights and electronics, to small portable solar lamps and phone chargers. If you are installing a medium or large system, it can make sense to purchase DC lights and appliances which run directly off your solar battery, instead of buying an inverter, as energy is lost in the process of converting from DC to AC.
Choose efficient electrical appliances – When buying electrical appliances, consider energy efficiency. This can be difficult in Tanzania where there is no clear efficiency rating system. A product’s “watts” measures the quantity of electricity it uses per second when working. For fridges, insulation is important, the seals on the doors, and also the size of the fridge/freezer – don’t use electricity cooling mostly empty fridges or freezers – maybe a smaller one will do!
Use appliances less, or efficiently –
- Switch off when not in use
- Turn down when you can
- Don’t leave the doors of fridges or freezers open
- Never run air conditioning with doors or glass windows open
- Fix leaks and conserve water – energy was used to pump the water to your home or workplace – don’t waste it
- Choose the stairs when you can, instead of the lift/elevator, in your apartment block or workplace, and increase your fitness at the same time!
Developed by Elaine in 2019. Contact me on Mastodon if you’d like to help update this website mastodon.ie/@ElaineActivism . If you don’t have a Mastodon account, you can join here mastodon.social
Kijanisha Dar ! - Dar Green Guide 