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Permalink Reply by Oliver Kynaston on May 29, 2013 at 11:32pm

I thought I would add some primary observations and link to a useful report on typical household consumption to update some of these figures. Primary observations are from a village in Tanga region, Tanzania this month. I add these more for 'ball park' figures as they are based on personal observations and not on official surveys - but for instance I feel that the figure of 25% of households using simple wick lanterns in the table above is too low. 

$1 USD ~= 1600 TZS

Primary Observations

• Cost of batteries = 300 TZS per battery (cheap Chinese 'Tiger Brand') 
• Cost of wick lantern = 500 TZS (locally made from tin can)
• Cost of glass lantern = 3000 TZS (imported Chinese)
• Average spend per day on Kerosene for wick lanterns = 400 TZS (range from 200 to 600 for most village families)
• Percentage of village households using simple wick lanterns only = 90%
• Percentage of village households also using glass covered lanterns = 10% (but they tend to also own simple wick lanterns)

Tanzania Household Budget Survey, survey of 10,000 households in Tanzania conducted in 2007 by Tanzania bureau of Statistics. Attached. 

From table on page 30/111

• Percentage of Rural households using Kerosene as primary source = 91.2%
• Percentage of Mainland Tanzania using Kerosene as primary source = 83%
• Percentage of Rural households using Candles and primary lighting source = 0.8%

From table on page 105/111

• Cost of Kerosene lamp = 300 TZS
• Cost of Candles = 150 TZS

Best, 

Oliver

Attachments:

• HBS 2007 Report - Final Document 6 May 2009.pdf, 993 KB

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Permalink Reply by Evan Mills on June 3, 2013 at 10:33pm

This is a textbook example of the kinds of responses we are hoping for.  Thanks so much for making the effort to provide input.

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Permalink Reply by Oliver Kynaston on June 5, 2013 at 11:44pm

Additional information on primary lighting sources from The Tanzanian National Sample Census of Agriculture - 2007/08 released in April 2012 from here (too large to attach). Sample size of 52,600 small and large scale farms out of an estimated 5,8 million rural agricultural households. 

The data on page 171/539 shows that wick lantern is most popular lighting source with 67% of households using as primary source, with hurricane lantern at 24%. Candles are reported as 0.3% (remember this is primary lighting).

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Pierce on June 6, 2013 at 1:41am

We can confirm many of Oliver's observations below from our work in Northern Tanzania.

Also some additions

Of 1000 households, some anecdotal information from surveys by our sales agents:

Average price of litre kerosene $1.20-$1.40 USD (Rural off-grid can be up to $1.50)

Average spend on Kerosene Tsh 350-400/day. 

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Permalink Reply by Lucas Zaehringer on June 17, 2013 at 7:52pm

Thank you for these information. 

Since kerosene is not only used for lamps, could you detail the cost of one kerosene lamp? Oliver said "Cost of Kerosene lamp = 300 TZS". I don't know if you have collected these information.

How much is the kerosene used for one lamp per day? For what use? (3 hours? less? more?)

Thanks

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