Biogas System

Biogas can offer an efficient and affordable energy resource for Pacific islands communities. And in Burns Creek in Honiara, a small biogas ‘plant’ is already demonstrating some of its many benefits by providing fuel for cooking and for lighting.

Organic waste from a nearby piggery is being used to produce the biogas for the Burns Creek plant. The waste was before a polluting influence in the community and water ways.

Using piggery waste for biogas turns the piggery into a cleaner and healthier business and produces clean blue flame Biogas

The Burns Creek project is being funded by the Republic of Kazakhstan through a grant that supports the construction of biogas plants in communities in the Pacific. The offer of Kazakhstan support was first announced during the Third International Conference on Small islands Developing States (SIDS) in 2014 in Samoa. Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Samoa successfully applied for this grant for biogas technologies in Samoa and other parts of the Pacific

The opening of the plant was held on the 22 March 2016. The Project was implemented in partnership of YWAM Samoa and YWAM Solomon Islands.

The YWAM biogas team was made of young Pacific islanders who have been trained in biogas and related sustainable technologies and who provide their expertise as a community and mission service. The training is hands-on (four weeks in February and March at Burns Creek) and trainees not only learn sustainability ideas behind the biogas system, they practice a strong work ethic throughout and help construct the biogas system themselves.

Capacity building is a key focus of the YWAM approach and an integral part of its biogas replication. The Burns Creek trainees not only learned how to build and maintain a biogas digester, they also learned how to make bricks and build water tanks.