Ingénieur Agroéconomiste et Assistant de Recherche, MULTINA-DMK, Bureau d'études de l'Université de Kinshasa, Faculté des Sciences Agronomiques, Université de Kinshasa, RD Congo
The present study aims to analyze the consumption of household energy for cooking within households in Kinshasa, Matadi, Boma and Moanda, while placing particular emphasis on the factors that explain the determining factors in the transition to use butane gas. To achieve this, 1,300 households were surveyed in the four cities.The results of the study reveal that 80% of the households surveyed in the four cities use the energy mix for cooking. The charcoal for energy remains one of the preferred components of energy mix for cooking in reason of weakness observed in the supply of electric current. However, wood energy is one of the drivers of deforestation in developing countries. In addition, butane gas as one of the alternatives to wood energy is almost nonexistent in the energy pool in the sites visited (0.5%).Two factors (gender of the household head and joint use of electricity and charcoal) explain the mutation of households that have never used butane gas to butane gas (p <0.05). Indeed, households whose head of household is a man have two times the marginal propensity to migrate to the use of butane gas that households headed by women (p <0.05). By cons, households jointly wear electricity and charcoal were 0.4 times less rested first to migrate to the use of butane gas than households that use of other energy mix (p <0, 05).