Inventory of household cooking energy use in Kinshasa: analysis of wood energy substitution

In The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the study assesses the use of cooking energy by households in Kinshasa and determines the energy model of this city. It is a contribution to the reflection on the substitution of the use of wood energy as the main cooking energy by clean ener-gies. Wood energy is one of the driver forces of deforestation and forest degra-dation in the Congo Basin. A quantitative survey was conducted with a sample of 1,154 randomly drawn households in the city of Kinshasa. These households were subdivided into quantiles of three classes: low-, middle-and high-income levels. The results of the study show that households in Kinshasa use six energies for cooking food in different propor-tions. These are sawdust (2.6%), firewood (14%), charcoal (95%), kerosene (12%), electricity (60%) and liquefied petro-leum gas (4%). The comparison made of the data collected with the energy ladder model, a model which indicates that the household moves to higher level energies as its income improves, could not make it possible to validate the said model because the households of medium income level do not use tran-sition energies (charcoal and kerosene) more than the other classes. Similarly, the comparison of the data with the energy stacking model, a model which stipulates that when income increases, the household tends to increase the number of energies used without aban-doning the old ones, could not make it possible to validate this model given that only high-income level households that stack more energies. The policy to be implemented to reduce the use of wood energy should aim to improve electricity supply at an affordable price, as well as the promotion of LPG.