Dissemination of Improved Cookstoves in Rural
Areas of the Developing World:
Recommendations
for the
A Study
Conducted for the
by
Ayça
Ergeneman
SPRING
2003
The author conducted this study as part of the
program of professional education at the Goldman School of Public Policy,
Executive Summary
Biomass fuels such as
wood, charcoal, dung, and crop residues account for approximately half of the
industrial and household energy consumption in developing countries. Domestic cooking makes up a major portion of
the total energy used in these nations, (close to 60 percent in Sub-Saharan
Africa) and nearly three billion people worldwide cook their meals on simple
stoves that use biomass fuels.
Efforts to improve the
efficiency of biomass cookstoves date back to the 1940s. In recent decades, urban areas in developing
nations have experienced higher penetration rates of improved stoves; indeed,
many urban households have made the switch to cleaner fuels like liquid petroleum
gas (LPG) or kerosene for cooking. Most
rural households in these countries, on the other hand, are not endowed with
the infrastructure that would bring them cleaner fuels, nor do they have the
adequate income to pay for the fuels if they were available.
The author believes
that low-income communities located in rural areas without access to markets or
energy infrastructure are most likely to benefit from improved cookstove
projects. The dissemination of increased-efficiency cookstoves in these households
can be a step taken toward curbing indoor air pollution, decreasing time and
money spent on fuelwood, and preventing the use of animal waste for fuel, which
results in less fertilizer being available for agriculture.
This paper addresses
the problem of low adoption rates of improved cookstoves in rural settings in
the developing world in an effort to provide recommendations to the Eritrea
Dissemination of Improved Stoves Program.
To identify key determinants of successful improved cookstove programs,
four programs that target rural settings were examined. The analysis of
improved cookstove programs in
1.
The Eritrea Dissemination
for Improved Stoves Program should continue the subsidy approach to make
the stoves affordable to low-income rural communities. However, the program should avoid setting
quotas for improved stove dissemination, as was done in
2.
As the program
moves on to national scale,
3.
4.
The Eritrean
program should rely on a stronger promotional strategy as the project
moves to national scale. The program
might want to investigate ways in which it could further promote the improved
cookstoves. The author believes that the
program could greatly benefit from a project promotion survey, which could
direct the program administrators to the most effective avenues for promoting
the improved cookstoves. Finally,
5.
6.
The Eritrean
ERTC should monitor the results of the improved cookstove program and
aim to complete annual evaluations on the progress of the program.
7.
The
enlargement of the scale of the program to the national level will require
increased levels of funding, especially if the subsidies are to be sustained.
8.
The survey of
the four improved cookstove programs has shown that the maximum rate of
adoption ranges between four to five percent, as realized by the Chinese
National Improved Cookstove Program. The
Eritrean program should view this number as a target while monitoring the
dissemination efforts closely to make sure that the adoption of cookstoves
results in the use of cookstoves.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
II. Background
on Improved Cookstoves and Improved Cookstove Programs
A. What
are improved cookstoves?
B. History
of Improved Cookstove Programs.
IV. Case Studies:
Methodology and Limitations
V. Overview
And Evaluation of Improved Cookstove Case Studies
A. Chinese
National Improved Stoves Program.
B. Indian
National Programme of Improved Chulhas.
C. Eritrea
Dissemination of Improved Stoves Program
D. Ethiopia
Mirt Improved Biomass Stoves Program.
VI. Comparison of Regional
Characteristics.
VII. Comparison of Program Characteristics.
D. Technical Assistance and Monitoring
Elements for
Success in Program Characteristics: Recommendations for Eritrea.
VIII. Comparison of Cookstove Characteristics.
B. User
Involvement in the Construction of the Stove.
C. Perceived
Benefits and Drawbacks.
Elements for
Success in Cookstove Characteristics: Recommendations for Eritrea.
ANRS
BEPE Bureau of Environmental Protection
and Energy
ARTI Appropriate Rural Technology
Institute
CNISP Chinese National Improved Stoves
Program
ERTC Energy
Research and
GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Techniche
Zusammenarbeit
HEPNR Household Energy/Protection of Natural Resources
Project
MNES Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy
Sources
NEDCAP Non-Conventional Energy Development
Corporation of Andhra Pradesh
NPIC Indian National Programme of Improved
Chulhas
KVIC Khadi and Village Industries
Commission
REO Rural Energy Office
RTPC Rural
SEW Self-Employed Workers
TBU Technical Backup Unit
Since the 1940s, efforts have been made to increase the efficiency of
biomass cookstoves by governments, international development organizations, and
NGOs. Although many of these programs
have been successful in urban areas, improved biomass cookstoves have not
reached enough households in rural settings in developing countries where three
quarters of the world’s 1.2 billion extremely poor people reside. This leaves the rural poor without access to
increased efficiency stoves, preventing a reduction in indoor air pollution,
greater time spent collecting firewood, as well as the use of dung and crop
residues, which would otherwise be used as fertilizer, for fuel. In order to identify determinants of success,
this paper will focus on four improved cookstove projects from around the
world, which have concentrated their efforts to increase stove dissemination in
rural areas. These programs are the
Chinese National Improved Cookstove Program, the Indian National Program of
Improved Chulhas, the Eritrea Dissemination of Improved Stoves Program, and the
Ethiopia Improved Biomass Stoves Program.
The paper will identify parallel characteristics in programs in which
high adoption and use rates have been achieved in an effort to provide
recommendations to the Eritrea Dissemination of Improved Stoves Program. It is
outlined in the following way: Section II provides background on improved
cookstoves and improved cookstove programs in the developing world. Section III discusses alternatives to
improved cookstoves and why improved cookstoves programs are appropriate
interventions for low-income rural communities without access to markets and
energy infrastructure. Section IV lays
out the methodology that the author will use in evaluating the success of the
case studies as well as the certain limitations encountered during the
analysis. Section V introduces the four case studies from
A. What are improved cookstoves?
The most common method of cooking used in
developing countries is an open fire.
The fire is usually shielded or surrounded by “three or more stones,
bricks, mounds of mud, or lumps of other incombustible material.” (Foley and Moss,
1983, pp.27) For short, such fires are
called “three-stone” fires, where the stones or surrounding materials act as a
support for the cooking pot over the fire.
These three-stone fires have continued to be used for cooking and
heating purposes, mainly due to their simplicity. They are easy to build and virtually
free. They can use a range of fuels.
They can be adapted to different forms quite easily – i.e. placed on waist-high
platforms for more convenience for the user.
There are more sophisticated types of traditional stoves, ranging from
mud stoves to heavy brick stoves to metal ones (see Figure 1 for different
types of cookstoves ranging from the three-stone to metal stoves). Most sources
cite the fuel-efficiency[1] of
traditional stoves as five to ten percent.
Since nearly three billion people in the world use traditional stoves to
cook their meals, efforts to improve the efficiency of cookstoves have been
increasingly popular in the developing world. Improved stoves come in different
forms and sizes. Improved cookstoves can be designed and built in various ways,
depending on the local conditions. “At
their simplest, improved stoves rely on providing an enclosure for the fire to
cut down on the loss of radiant heat and protect it against the wind. In
addition, attention can be given to devising methods of controlling the upward
flow of the combustion gases, so as to increase the transfer of heat to the
cooking pot” (Foley and Moss, 1983, pp.16).
Many of these stoves are made of mud or sand since both are almost free
and readily available.
One should be careful
in concluding that traditional stoves are inferior and inefficient and
therefore account for the high consumption of biomass resources, as a family’s
fuel consumption is largely dependent on the fuel scarcity it faces and not
necessarily the efficiency of the stove.
Studies show that in areas that experience fuel scarcity, consumption is
about one third of that in areas where fuel is in abundance. This indicates that households already take
measures to cut down on fuel use when they feel the “energy pinch” by “feeding
fuel into the fire more carefully, using smaller pieces […], and using the fire
for shorter periods” (Foley and Moss, 1983, pp.15). Moreover, one finds that most of the claims
citing the inefficiency of traditional stoves in the literature are more
anecdotal than scientific and not all “improved” stoves have been more
efficient than traditional ones (Gill 1985). Traditional stoves have been
around for thousands of years and have evolved to meet the local needs in a way
that is affordable for the users. Even
when the considerable progress in increasing efficiency of cookstoves is taken
into account, it is a hard task to offer these stoves at an affordable price to
households. This is a daunting task
that many improved cookstove programs face all around the world.
In
industrial countries, the switch to more efficient stoves took place smoothly
as fuelwood prices increased and stove makers increased efforts to build more
efficient models. This was followed by a
transition to cleaner fuels for cooking, such as coal and petroleum-based
fuels.
As the availability of
and access to petroleum-based fuels began to increase at the beginning of the
20ieth century, many urban households in developing countries switched to
stoves using oil-based products such as kerosene or liquid petroleum gas (LPG)
as fuels, just like their developed nation counterparts. On the other hand, rural households continued
their dependence on the burning of biomass fuels for cooking and heating
purposes. This was mainly due to weak
delivery channels for petroleum-based products and rural people’s inability to
afford these fuels especially compared to biomass resources, which were more
freely available (Barnes et al, 1994).
When oil prices increased in the 1970s, even urban households found it
hard to pay for fuels such as kerosene and LPG and many of them stepped back
down the energy ladder and started using biomass fuels for household
energy.
Domestic cooking makes up a major portion of the total energy used in
developing nations, close to 60 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, so that nearly
three billion people worldwide cook their meals on simple stoves that use
biomass fuels (Kammen, July 1995). As
noted before, many of these stoves operate with low efficiencies and use six or
seven times more energy than non-biomass-burning stoves (Barnes et al, 1994). The goal of improved cookstove programs is to
develop “more efficient, energy-saving, and inexpensive biomass cookstoves
[that] can help alleviate local pressure on wood resources, shorten the walking
time required to collect the fuel, reduce cash outlays necessary for purchased
fuelwood or charcoal, and diminish the pollution released to the environment”
(Barnes et al, 1994, pp.1).
One of the first
improved stoves was the “Magan Chula”, introduced in
The benefits associated with improved cookstove programs fall in two categories: those that are interna