KOPAGAS

The challenge

In Tanzania, 96 percent of the country’s 47 million citizens use solid fuels such as charcoal and wood as their primary source of energy for cooking, causing detrimental effects on the safety and respiratory health of families and the country’s ecology.

While most Tanzanians aspire to use cleaner fuel like liquid petroleum gas (LPG), the biggest impediments are the high upfront cost of purchasing an upgraded stove and gas cylinder, and the lack of access to these types of fuels. As a result, poor households continue to rely on inefficient, dirty and costly solid fuels, exposing millions of families to harmful fumes every day.

The innovation

KopaGas is making clean, efficient liquid petroleum gas (LPG) affordable and available to low-income households through its pioneering pay-as-you-go (PAYG) smart metering technology and partnership with Tanzania’s leading LPG importer.

Once a customer puts down a 10 percent deposit, their household receives a gas cylinder, single burner stove and a GSM-enabled smart meter, allowing customers to use the stove on a pay-per-use basis making payments via their mobile phone. When the customer is about to run out of cooking fuel, the smart meter alerts KopaGas, which then sends a local agent to refill the cylinder.

The company has secured a long-term partnership with Tanzania’s leading LPG importer to address the issue of access. It has also created a wide network of last-mile retailers to deliver gas cylinders to even the hardest-to-reach customers across Tanzania.