Transforming cow manure into homegrown energy

Could you build a catering business off the back of cow manure?

Meet Endang, a woman from Gayam Village in Java, Indonesia. Endang has used our help – and a lot of manure – to build her family catering business.

It began with a collaboration with the Trukajaya Foundation, an Indonesian NGO that helps to build communities, for an opportunity to use the large number of cows in the area to help fuel household biogas. Because wherever there are cows, there’s a readymade fuel for biogas: cow manure.

For the villagers of Gayam to get a biogas digester and gas piped to their homes, all they needed were at least two cows and a barn with a cement floor. This was to ensure there wasn’t any contamination from dirt, sand, or animal food entering the biogas system.

And Endang, who ran her own catering business, saw an opportunity.

She already owned the two cows, and needed an affordable gas supply for cooking. Up till then, Endang had to spend nearly a fifth of her net profit for gas in order to cook the traditional steamed cakes, sponge cakes and sticky rice rolls she sells for weddings and other events. So, switching to biogas was a win-win.

Installing the system was not an easy – nor pleasant – process. The cow manure needed to be mixed with water and stirred in the mixer tank, before the mixture proceeds through pipelines into an output pool for fermentation, creating the gas which is trapped and siphoned off for use.

Once she was connected to the fermentation tank and could access the biogas created, not only did Endang have 24-hour lighting and cooking facilities at her home, her business no longer took the hit of having to regularly buy gas bottles. The biogas digester also created an entirely new revenue stream for her family, as they started selling the solid waste created in the fermentation tank as fertilizer.

Endang’s success encouraged others in her village to get biogas installed at their own homes. Soon, the initial four participants grew to 187, giving them all access to more energy.

We're helping people in Endang’s village, and elsewhere, put the ability to access affordable, secure power in their own hands – setting them up for a better future.