**2.9. Wood fuel and other biomass fuels**

**2.4. Coal**

242 New Developments in Renewable Energy

**2.5. Petroleum**

**2.6. Wind**

**2.7. Solar**

500 MW from wind [7].

great role in rural electrification.

**2.8. Geothermal**

Coal reserves in Tanzania are estimated at about 1,200 million tonnes of which 304 million tonnes are proven [12]. Coal sites include Kiwira, Mchuchuma/Katewaka on the south east of Lake Nyasa, and Ngaka in Ruvuma region. Coal has been used in limited quantities for electricity generation as well as in some industries such as cement factories. Low coal con‐ sumption in the country is due to part to huge investment costs and quality of the coal itself. However, there is a plan to generate 600 MW from Mchuchuma coal mine in the near future.

Imported petroleum and related products are widely used in the transport and industrial sector. It also used to generate electricity in isolated grid-diesel power stations that have and installed capacity of 33.8 MW [10]. Petroleum and related by-products are imported by a

Based on the available information much of the wind resources in Tanzania is located in the central part of the country, North-East part, and Southern part [4]. Currently wind energy is used to pump water for irrigation and to meet domestic and livestock water needs [10]. Very limited number of attempts has been made to install wind turbine for electricity gen‐ eration. However, efforts are underway to utilize wind energy in electricity generation. Several companies like Geo-Wind Power (T) limited, Wind East Africa/ Six Telecoms, and Sino-Tanzania Renewable Energy Limited have been licenced to generate electricity of about

Solar has not been utilized fully as energy sources even though the country being one of the solar belts, that is being a county with 2800-3500 hours of sunshine per year and a global radiation of 4-7 kWh/m2 per day. Despite the huge solar potential, solar energy has predom‐ inately been used only for drying process. In the recent years solar PV technology has been promoted as an energy solution especially in rural areas where there is no access to the na‐ tional grid. It is anticipated that in the near future, solar as a source of energy will play a

The country is endowed with a huge geothermal potential, which has not yet exploited [13]. Geothermal power is a reliable, low-cost, environmental friendly, alternative energy supply, indigenous, renewable energy source and suitable for electricity generation. Estimations by analogue method [14] show that the geothermal potential in the country is about 650 MW of which most of the prospects are located within the East African Rift Valley system. Geother‐ mal resource exploitation is a capital intensive investment; hence, private investment is not expected to come in before obtaining detail information on the resources, particularly on

single company and regulated by EWURA, which controls the price and standard.

Tanzania's energy supply depends mainly on biomass. Since 85-88 percent of the population are not connected to the electricity grid, the overwhelming majority of households use fire wood and charcoal for cooking. As a total, biomass makes up to 88 percent [4] of the total primary energy consumption in Tanzania. Unfortunately, this leads to the deforestation of 100,000 ha per year, of which is very serious since only about a quarter of the Tanzanian land is re-forested

About 50% of the population lives in poverty, out of which 35% is unable to access all of the basic needs including energy services. The poor spend about 35% of their household income on energy while the well-off spends only 14%. Lack of access to modern energy services cre‐ ates a vicious cycle of poverty for rural communities due to continued limited production opportunities and social facilities. This situation creates a very big challenge to the country. There is a need; to look for an alternative means for assisting the rural poor to have opportu‐ nities of accessing to modern energy for reason of alleviating poverty. This chapter is pro‐ posing biomass to be one of the alternatives of energy resource which can be employed in modern form to change the situation.
