South Africa: Basa Magogo

The Basa Magogo project is based on successful studies carried out by the Nova Research Organisation in eMbalenhle, a township near Secunda, Free State, South Africa. 

Basa Magogo literally means "granny fire" and gets its name because an elderly lady in eMbalenhle was central to its development.

The project encourages residents to make fires for heating in a new way. This reduces air pollution as well as providing a more effective combustion process causing the fire to heat up quicker, burn for longer and reduce particulate emissions by more than 80%.


Project benefits

The reduction in coal use and particle emissions has provided major health benefits for users as well as for the general population in the area. Energy consumption and emissions of carbon dioxide are reduced by 25% which is the basis of the Verified Emission Reductions (VER) in this project, verified by KPMG.  

Each household saves about 300kg of coal per year - coal price averaging at 80 cents per kilogramme.

Since D-grade coal contains about 15% ash, the avoidance of solid waste in the form of ash is also an important advantage to users as well as to local authorities.

The photo below shows the difference between the traditional method of fire making on the left and the new approach on the right