International Journal of Engineering and Technology

A study was conducted in Melani rural community of Nkonkobe district in Eastern Cape province of South Africa, with the aim of identifying types of energy sources and house-holds energy utilization. Melani village (32°43’29” S, 27°07’35” E) is 20 km away from Alice town and has a house-hold population of about 350. The survey was conducted to 50% of the randomly chosen house-holds using a semi-structured questionnaires and the onset CTA-A hobo current transducers were installed in three house-hold to measure the current used. The survey showed that electricity is the main source of energy for cooking, lighting and heating. While paraffin and candles are used for lighting. The data collected using the data acquisition system has also shown that each house-holds consumes an average of 140 kWh of electricity per month. Assuming this amount of energy being used throughout the year, then on average each house-hold consumes 1680 kWh of electricity per year. The paper concludes that there is a need to promote sustainable energy resources and technologies such as the use of biogas digesters as an alternative source of energy since each house-hold has on average of 20 cattle’s and 10 of goats.