Improved Biomass Stoves: The Next Generation

There is a new sheriff in town. Today around the world there is an entirely new and innovative variety of improved stoves that are being manufactured in factories or workshops and sometimes backed by large international companies. These new types of stoves generally are made of quite durable materials that will last for 5 to 10 years or even longer and some come with guarantees. The goal of the marketing of these new stoves is to improve energy efficiency of cooking, to lower indoor air pollution, and to reduce labor or cash expenses required for cooking for the poorest half of the world’s population. The idea is to supply the nearly 3 billion people around the world that still use biomass energy with a stove that that is more modern and efficient than the traditional ones that they now use. Will these new stoves bring order to the wild west of improved stoves programs characterized by hundreds of models made out of vastly different local materials and produced by local artisans?

Traditional Stove in India: Photo by S. Desai

Stoves have existed since the beginning of human history. They have come in various sizes and styles, having been adapted to myriad cultures and food preparation methods. As society has progressed, more sophisticated stove models have been developed. Today’s modern kitchen reflects the many types of standardized and specialized cooking devices available from coffee and tea pots to toasters and gas cooktops. In contrast, the poor in developing countries still burn biomass energy in what amounts to open fires. The smoke produced by these primitiave stoves has been associated with a number of diseases, the most serious of which is acute respiratory illness such as bronchitis and pnemonia.

Envirofit Stove Model G-3300 in India: Photo by Envirofit

The development of improved biomss stoves has witnessed several overlapping stages over the last 30 years and today there are actually three types of programs around the world. One type of improved stove is locally made by small businesses or the even those in household members after they trained. Such stoves are very inexpensive at less than 10 dollars each and sometimes even less than 5 dollars. These artisan-made stoves provide relatively good performance when new, but performance degrades over the short one or two year live of the stove. The second type of stove involves manufactured parts, which are assembled on site with local materials. These stoves are still inexpensive but are a bit more expensive and more durable than the artisan stoves. There will be a later blog on these two types of stoves.

Stovetec Stove: Photo by Aprovecho

The competition is heating up for the “next generation” of stoves that are manufactured in their entirely in factories and workshops world. They include efficient biomass stoves, alcohol stoves, stoves that use pellets, and others. Some of the world’s largest companies have become involved including Shell Foundation, Bosch Siemens, Phillips, British Petroleum and others. There are two interesting examples for wood stoves including the Envirofit stoves and the Stovetec produced by Aprovecho. Others innovations include the Worldstove, First Energy’s Oorja Stove, Gaia’s Dometic (Gaia project), Bosh-Siemens Protos stove, the Onil stove in Guatemala, and the Justa stove in Honduras. A very interesting new initiative by the Government of India endorses the concept of manufactured stoves and implementation is in the planning stages.

The international donors have been slow to embace or support these new generaton of stoves and admittedly this is still an incomplete picture. However, it may just take some time for the realization to set in that such programs can probably be as important as increasing electricity access in terms of improved health and quality of life such as less fuel collection, shorter cooking time, reduced releases of carbon, and less pressure on local forests.

Its nice that there is more international competition in developing new products. However, the question is should there be more interational attention to this problem?

More resources below.

Measuring the Benefits of Electricity

It is very difficult to measure the value of electricity in many countries because access to it is virtually universal and prices and connection costs are often subsidized or set by regulatory agencies. One interesting way to estimate the value of services such as electricity is to ask people how much money they would take if the service was taken away from them. This is actually a research method that is used most often in environmental studies.

DC Blizzard of 2010 Photo D. Barnes

I am actually writing about this today because of the Washington DC Blizzard of 2010 this past weekend. After getting 28 inches of snow, our electricity service went out for about 24 hours. This not only meant no light, television, or internet, but our gas furnace requires electricity to operate. With outdoor temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius, the temperature inside the house quickly dropped to first 60 and then 50 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 10 Celsius). Our decorative fireplace did not help very much.

To get warm I actually went outside for a walk, and as I was going down the street I passed the site where the electricity lines were down. I saw an electricity truck passing by, and someone on the other side of the street shoveling snow yelled in jest, “Hey I have a few hundred dollar bills if you fix those power lines.” Obviously, his offer was based on the prospect of a cold house without lighting, heating, entertainment, comfort, and communications for just a few days.

In one study that I was involved in we actually asked the people in focus groups how much we would have to pay them to take electricity away from them for 2 years; they would not be permitted to buy generators or other electricity from other sources. They knew this was a hypothetical question, but they gave to some interesting answers. One younger couple gave us a figure of about USD 20,000 which is quite a bit of money in the Philippines 10 years ago. However, one older woman was adamant. She said “I grew up without electricity and you could not pay me anything that would induce me to go without it.” This reminded me of the man with the snow shovel in Washington DC during the blizzard of 2010.

How would you characterize the benefits of rural electrificatoin.  Take the poll below. 

poll by twiigs.com

The Benefits of Rural Electrification in Developing Countries

I am always surprised when people question the benefits of rural electrification programs in developing countries as sometimes happens. The argument goes something like this. People in rural areas cannot afford much more than the amount of electricity required for basic lighting. In addition, there are other investments that may be more worthwhile than electricity such as education, health clinics, or clean water. This is fair enough, so let’s examine some of the benefits of rural electrification. Before getting started, here are some links to related posts on this blog.

The Household Benefits of Lighting with Electricity: Consumer Surplus Explained

Electric Power for Rural Growth, 2nd Edition

Measuring the Benefits of Rural Electrification

Measuring Household Lighting: Survey Design Issues

Rural Electrification and Communication

Facing Rural Energy Realities in Bangladesh

Impact of Rural Electrification in Peru:  A "New" Study

One reason for this skeptical attitude towards the impact of electricity in developing countries is that as friend of mine used to say, “Electricity by itself is nothing more than a dangerous wire.” The service being purchased is not really electricity at all, but such benefits as cooling, lighting, communications, cooling, heating, and socializing. Electricity is a means to an end and not the end itself. It also should be noted that electricity can be provided through a grid as is the case in most of the developed world, or through decentralized generation that often is based on renewable energy.

Computer Lab in Northern Vietnam:
Source: World Bank

The surprising thing is that those questioning the benefits of rural electrification go home in the evening, turn on their televisions, check their email, browse the internet, enjoy heating in winter and air conditioning in summer, sometimes cook their meals with electricity and sit down in a comfortable chair and read a nice book. It is true that not all of the benefits of electricity are affordable to poor people in developing countries, but certainly lighting, television, fans, and are within their means. Computers and internet cannot be far behind. Really, how can societies advance without electricity? I will leave the issue whether the benefits are with the costs of providing electricity for a later blog post.
To view a film and other resources continue below.

Some years ago I completed a book on this subject called Electric Power for Rural Growth. In 2014 I published the second edition. There also has been a comprehensive review of The Welfare Impact of Rural Electrification in the World Bank by the Independent Evaluation Group. For evaluating the impact of improved and less expensive lighting for rural households, there is an interesting economic four page article by Henry Peskin that explains the theory of consumer surplus and how it is applied to evaluating the benefits of rural electrification in A Primer on Consumer Surplus. For a more comprehensive work on this subject the original study that applied this approach to rural electrification was pioneered in study called Rural Electrification and Development in the Philippines.

For the more statistically inclined there are some recent papers just published on The Welfare Impact of Rural Electrification in Vietnam and Bangladesh. According the Vietnam paper, based two surveys in 2002 and 2005 households who adopt electricity experience improvements in the school attendance of their children. Electricity is used immediately for television viewing and of course for electric lighting making it easier to read, socialize, and enjoy the evening hours. In some cases this can lead to improved incomes as lighting makes possible running small businesses in the home.

Gender, Energy and Development

Energy is often thought of as poles, wires, and transmission lines. However, the only reason for this infrastructure exists is that they provide some sort of service to industry, businesses, and households. The same can be said for gas pipelines, large storage tanks for liquid petroleum gas and other types of energy. People, businesses, and other organizations pay for all of these energy services. That is the only reason that they exist at all.

Fuelwood Collection S. India by  D Barnes

So it is somewhat surprising that gender is often overlooked in the provision of energy services in developing counries. Electricity certainly has an impact on women and girls in developing countries through making the home environment more livable, encouraging girls to attend school, and reducing household drudgery. Rural electrification and electricity access now is recognized as a significant priority in many developing countries, especially those in S. Asia and Africa. But while attention often is paid to the wires and poles, is there enough attention to appliances operated by women including fans, small refrigerators, spice grinders, rice cookers, toasters, and others?

Also somewhat overlooked in the energy development business is that women and girls also can be the main suppliers of household energy in developing countries. There have been numerous studies documenting that woman and to a lesser extent men spend much time collecting most of their cooking fuels from the local environment. This fuel collection is time consuming and diverts time from both income earning or other household activities. In addition, the literature on the adverse health impacts of indoor air pollution resulting from burning biomass fuels on open fires or low quality stoves has become very well documented during the last 20 years. Finally, cooking fuels in developing countries contribute about 1 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year, and yet there is barely a mention of household fuels in the climate change debate.

See more below the break.

Rural Electrification and Low Connection Costs

Village in Maharashtra India: by D. Barnes

Many developing countries still have very high connection costs.  This helps with the utility to recover costs of providing serive, but it also means that many people even in areas with electricity available may not be able to afford a connection to the electricity grid.  Reasearch from around the world indicates that those countries wth low new service connection costs or which provide financal assistance for such costs have much higher rates of connection by poorer households. 

Given that the benefits of rural electrification are quite high, should countries or utilities with high connection costs consider changing their policies?

For more information see short note on
Transformative Power.

There will be more to come on this topic in the future as we are just collecting collecting cost information from a large number of countries.  See new post added in 2013.