Compared per unit of useful heat, cooking gas usually beats charcoal. Households know this. Many keep buying charcoal anyway, and the reason has almost nothing to do with the per-unit comparison.
The cash flow problem#
Charcoal is bought in whatever quantity today's money allows. A small tin costs a small amount. There is no minimum purchase and no deposit, and the expense scales down smoothly on a bad week.
LPG does not work like that. The first purchase requires a cylinder deposit plus a full refill, both at once. For a household managing daily cash, an expense that must be paid in one lump is not merely larger — it is a different category of expense, and one that competes directly with school fees and rent.
Stacking is normal, not a failure#
Development literature once framed the goal as households moving up a ladder from biomass to charcoal to gas to electricity, abandoning each rung.
Observed behaviour is different. Households add fuels rather than replacing them. Gas is used for tea, quick meals and anything where waiting is annoying. Charcoal or firewood stays for beans, ugali in large quantities, and anything that cooks slowly or feeds many people. The slow-cooking task is exactly the one where gas consumption is highest and therefore where the cost advantage narrows.
A household with a gas cylinder and a charcoal jiko has not failed to transition. It has optimised.
What actually moves adoption#
Three things shift behaviour more reliably than price campaigns:
- Smaller cylinders. A 6 kg unit converts an unaffordable lump into a manageable one, even at a worse price per kilogram.
- Deposit-free or deposit-financed entry. Removing the cylinder deposit removes the largest single barrier.
- Refill density. A refill point within walking distance changes gas from a planned expedition into an errand.
The third is underrated. A household will not depend on a fuel it cannot restock the same day it runs out, because running out mid-meal is not a minor inconvenience.
The supply side constraint#
Retail availability depends on import terminals, storage, bottling capacity and a distribution fleet. Cylinder circulation adds a further complication: cylinders belong to brands, must be inspected and requalified periodically, and illegal cross-filling of one brand's cylinder with another's product is both a safety hazard and a persistent commercial problem.
Cross-filling is not a branding dispute. A cylinder outside its inspection cycle, filled by someone with no equipment to check it, is the failure most likely to set adoption back by years.
Why charcoal persists on the supply side too#
Charcoal production is a rural income source requiring almost no capital. Restricting it removes earnings from people with few alternatives, which is why enforcement has been uneven across the region regardless of the stated policy. Any credible transition has to account for the producers, not only the consumers.
Sources and further reading
