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ifteen years ago Kerta, a small village in Payangan subdistrict, Gianyar regency, was listed as an underdeveloped village. Despite its close proximity to the “international village” of Ubud, Kerta had no electricity or clean water supply.

Today, Kerta is a totally different village thanks to efforts by its residents to adopt energy-efficient systems in their homes.

“We have set a target that by 2012 most of the households will be able to produce sufficient amounts of biogas to fulfill their daily energy requirements,” Kerta village secretary I Made Darmaja said Sunday.

Currently, there are 44 biogas production installations — the locals call them “reactors”— in operation in the village. Six of them were built using funds provided by the local administration and the rest were paid for by the residents themselves.

“The village comprises 980 households, including 5,620 people. The existing reactors could provide energy to only 5 percent of the total population. We are working hard to increase the number of reactors,” Darmaja added.

He said he was convinced that the number would increase exponentially since the residents had showed burning enthusiasm for the program.

“In the last 10 days three new reactors have been constructed and the other residents have expressed their willingness to join the program,” he said.

His optimism was shared by the residents who have participated in the program.

Farmer I Nyoman Suwena, who equipped his house with a biogas reactor four months ago, said that energy self-sufficiency was a truly beneficial concept, particularly from an economic perspective.

“In the last four months I haven’t spent money to buy gas or chemical fertilizer. I save a lot,” he said.

Suwena said that previously he spent Rp 75,000 per month to refill his 12 kilogram gas canister. He also spent hundreds of thousand of rupiah every month on chemical fertilizer for his 1-hectare fruit plantation.

“Now I don’t have to spent anything on that,” he said.

Suwena’s biogas reactor is fed with manure produced by his eight cows. The reactor produces enough gas for 10 hours of non-stop use.

Suwena spent Rp 9 million to build the reactor, which included Rp 2 million in cash assistance from Biogas Rumah (BIRU), the Indonesian Domestic Biogass Programme from the Dutch NGO HIVOS.

HIVOS provides this assistance to any resident willing to construct their own biogas reactor.

The manure processed by the reactor can also be used as organic fertilizer.

“I believe that in the long run, say in 20 years, the benefits of having a biogas reactor will far surpass the amount of money we spent building it,” he said.

A similar opinion was echoed by pig farmer Ni Ketut Murdi. She and her husband raise cattle.

When they learned about the program, Murdi immediately built his own reactor, spending Rp 5 million in the process.

When it was complete, Murdi purchased six pigs and uses their manure to feed the reactor.

“My cattle are situated far away from my house so I bought pigs to feed the reactor,” she said, adding that the reactor now could produce up to six hours worth of gas per day.

The fixed dome reactor the residents built with assistance from BIRU has a life expectancy of about 15-20 years.

“Our target is for villagers across Bali to have built 600 reactors through self-finance schemes by 2012,” BIRU Bali and Lombok provincial coordinator I Gede Suarja said, adding that there were currently 58 reactors
on Bali.

The residents of Kerta have also launched a self-financed clean water supply management system, an initiative that pipes water from nearby springs into houses in the village. Each household pays Rp 1,000 for every cubic meter of water it consumes.

Following the success of the biogas and clean water programs, the village is now considering instigating a program aimed at generating electricity for the whole village.