Starting in 2020, Off-Grid Gas entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Debre Tabor University in Debre Tabor, Ethiopia, with the joint goal of developing technology to process the invasive water hyacinth into biogas, electricity, fertilizer, and other products.
We have begun by building several household scale digesters on Lake Tana with the support of the Ethiopian Energy Office, and began research on the use of hyacinth pulp, including analysis and trials at Debre Tabor University. Monitoring of gas production on site has now begun, and we continue to develop technology for the efficient use of hyacinth in this context. Thank you to JAC Fund from the United Kingdom for supporting this work.
We also began converting local gasoline generators to produce electricity from biogas on Lake Tana, which can provide useful services such as an injera kitchen, grain milling, irrigation, a lighted study area, refrigeration, phone charging, and other commercial opportunities for community members. This is currently under development along with a larger, community digester that will produce saleable fertilizer and electricity, including several proposals to East African, Canadian, American, Swiss, Finnish, and Dutch Funding Sources.