ABOUT LPGUntil recently we have not had a consistent, reliable supply of LPG in South Africa. That has begun to change; rapidly. S.A companies are taking the plunge and ushering in a new era of LPG availability. This is a very good thing for the country, considering the constraints on energy supply and resultant effect on costs.
LPG – consists of butane, propane or a mix of the two – it is optimally suited for three things: cooking, heating water and heating spaces. It's the latter that leads to the demand for LPG being cyclical, with its usage spiking significantly over winter.
LPG is also well overdue a concerted effort to place it in newly built houses, and in the houses of low-income consumers, where heating is traditionally accomplished through burning wood or paraffin. According to the WHO, yearly nearly four million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from these cooking practices, and close to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children under five years of age are caused by soot inhaled from household air pollution.
