• Energy Research
• US close

In spite of growing interest, a principal obstacle to wider inclusion of improved cookstove projects in carbon trading schemes has been the lack of accountability in estimating CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) savings. To demonstrate that robust estimates of CO2-e savings can be obtained at reasonable cost, an integrated approach of community-based subsampling of traditional and improved stoves in homes to estimate fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, combined with spatially explicit community-based estimates of the fraction of nonrenewable biomass harvesting (fNRB), was used to estimate CO2-e savings for 603 homes with improved Patsari stoves in Purépecha communities of Michoacán, Mexico. Mean annual household CO2-e savings for CO2, CH4, CO, and nonmethane hydrocarbons were 3.9 tCO2-e home(-1) yr(-1) (95% Cl +/- 22%), and for Kyoto gases (CO2 and CH4) were 3.1 tCO2-e home(-1) yr(-1) (95% Cl +/- 26%), respectively, using a weighted mean fNRB harvesting of 39%. CO2-e savings ranged from 1.6 (95% Cl +/- 49%) to 7.5 (95% Cl +/- 17%) tCO2-e home(-1) yr(-1) for renewable and nonrenewable harvesting in individual communities, respectively. Since emission factors, fuel consumption, and fNRB each contribute significantly to the overall uncertainty in estimates of CO2-e savings, community-based assessment of all of these parameters is critical for robust estimates. Reporting overall uncertainty in the CO2-e savings estimates provides a mechanism for valuation of carbon offsets, which would promote better accounting that CO2-e savings had actually been achieved. Cost of CO2-e savings as a result of adoption of Patsari stoves was U.S. $8 per tCO2-e based on initial stove costs, monitoring costs, and conservative stove adoption rates, which is approximately 4 times less expensive than use of carbon capture and storage from coal plants, and approximately 18 times less than solar power. The low relative cost of CO2-e abatement of improved stoves combined with substantial health cobenefits through reduction in indoor air pollution provides a strong rationale for targeting these less expensive carbon mitigation options, while providing substantial economic assistance for stove dissemination efforts.

AbstractWhile plancha-type cookstoves are very popular and widely disseminated in Latin America, few peer review articles exist documenting their detailed technical performance. In this paper we use the standard Water Boiling Tests (WBT) to assess the energy and emission performance of five plancha-type cookstoves disseminated in about 450 thousand Mexican rural homes compared to the traditional 3-stone fire (TSF). In the high-power phase, average modified combustion efficiencies (MCE) for plancha-type stoves were 97±1% which was higher than TSF 93±4%, and reductions in CO and PM2.5 total emissions were on average 44%. Time to boil and specific fuel consumption, however, were increased in plancha-type stoves compared to the open fire as a result of the reduced overall thermal efficiency of the plancha during WBT. In the simmering phase, plancha-type stoves showed much more consistent performance reductions compared to the TSF. MCE for plancha stoves were on average 98±1% and 95±3% for the TSF, while reductions in CO and PM2.5 total emissions were on average 55%. In this phase 27% average savings in fuel use are achieved by plancha-type stoves. Removal of the plancha rings resulted in savings of specific fuel consumption (SFC), thermal efficiency (TE), and time to boil; however, CO and PM2.5 emissions increased significantly as flue air is drawn through the comal surface rather than through the combustion zone, resulting in suboptimal combustion conditions.International Workshop Agreement (IWA) energy performance Tiers for plancha-type stoves ranged from 0 to 1. However, these results contrast sharply with the well documented reductions in fuel consumption during daily cooking activities achieved by these stoves. IWA indoor emissions Tiers are 4 for both PM2.5 and CO using locally measured values for fugitive emissions. Optimization of combustion chamber design on these stoves in Mexico is desirable to further reduce indoor emissions and to reduce the impacts of neighborhood pollution that can re-infiltrate kitchens. Comparison of performance between plancha-type stoves and unvented stoves should reflect the substantial gains that are made by reducing indoor air pollution and exposures by venting pollutants.

article i nfo Half of the world population relies on biomass for cooking, with very significant health as well as climate change impacts. Improved cookstoves have been disseminated as an alternative to reduce these impacts. However, few detailed studies about the economic benefits of improved cookstoves (ICS) interventions, including environmental and health co-benefits, exist to date. In this paper we perform a comprehensive economic evaluation of a dissemination program of ICS in rural Mexico. The resulting cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of the Patsari improved cookstove is presented, utilizing estimation of direct costs and benefits, including fuelwood savings, income generation, health impacts, environmental conservation, and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The analysis is based on comprehensive data obtained through monitoring studies carried out in the Study Area from 2003 to the present. Results show that Patsari cookstoves represent a viable economic option for improving living conditions of the poorest inhabitants of rural Mexico, with benefit/cost ratios estimated between 11.4:1 and 9:1. The largest contributors to economic benefits stemmed from fuelwood savings and reductions in health impacts, which constituted 53% and 28% of the overall benefit, respectively.

There have been few detailed assessments of the actual impacts of improved stove interventions in rural communities, although many improved stove projects have reported overall efficiencies from tests in simulated kitchens using water-boiling tests (WBTs). This paper presents an integrated energy evaluation of the Patsari cookstove, an efficient wood-burning cookstove developed in Mexico that has recently obtained international recognition, in comparison to traditional cookstoves in rural communities of Michoacan, Mexico. The evaluation uses three standard protocols: the WBT, which quantifies thermal efficiency and firepower; the controlled cooking test (CCT), which measures specific energy consumption associated with local cooking tasks, and the kitchen performance test (KPT), which evaluates the behavior of the stoves in-field conditions and estimates fuel savings. The results showed that the WBT gave little indication of the overall performance of the stove in rural communities. Field testing in rural communities is of critical importance, therefore, in estimating the benefits of improved stoves. In the CCT for tortilla making, the main cooking task in Mexican rural households, Patsari stoves showed fuelwood savings ranging from 44% to 65% in relation to traditional open fires (n=6; P<0.05). These savings were similar in magnitude to the average energy savings from KPT before and after Patsari adoption of 67% (n=23; P<0.05) in rural households exclusively using fuelwood. Similar energy savings of 66% for fuelwood and 64% for LPG, respectively, were also observed in households using mixed fuels. With sound technical design, critical input from local users and proper dissemination strategies, therefore, improved stoves can significantly contribute to improvements in the quality of life of rural people with potential benefits to the surrounding environment.

This paper describes the monitoring and evaluation of three improved cookstove dissemination projects implemented between 2004 and 2006 by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India and Mexico. The projects assessed stove performance using lab-based water boiling tests (WBTs), which yield a number of performance indicators including time to boil water, specific fuel consumption, and energy efficiency when the stove is operated at both high and low power output. They also conducted field-based kitchen performance tests (KPTs), which yield daily per capita fuel consumption in real cooking conditions. In addition, one NGO utilized a controlled cooking test, which combined elements of lab- and field-based tests. In all cases, improved cookstoves (ICSs) were compared to local traditional cookstoves (TCSs). The results of the WBTs were mixed. Although the improved stoves generally showed some improvement in efficiency for the low-power simmering phases, the stoves were less efficient than traditional stoves in high-power water-boiling phases. The results from the KPTs were much less ambiguous. Three ICS models were tested for fuel consumption during real household use. All ICSs showed statistically significant reductions (p < 0.05) in average daily per capita fuel use ranging from 19 to 67 %. We also explore the correlations between the outcomes in lab-based tests and field-based tests in order to understand the relationships between the two assessment methods. Only fuel consumption in the low-power phase of the WBT showed a strong correlation with fuel consumption in the field (r 2 = 0.83, p = 0.01). We discuss the implications of this association as well as the other outcomes and present some policy recommendations for monitoring and evaluation of large-scale stove interventions.

Summary. — In a shift exemplary of neoliberal approaches to development, major funders of household energy interventions have begun to emphasize market-based stove dissemination over partially subsidized models. Stove promoters are increasingly expected to operate as self-sustaining businesses. This shift is viewed as a way to ‘‘scale-up” in order to reach millions of poor households lacking access to clean cooking technologies. Using the case of GIRA, an NGO that has successfully distributed cookstoves in Mexico’s Central Highlands for nearly two decades, we demonstrate how this trend presents challenges for organizations operating effectively with outside funding in highly contextual local conditions. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Monitoring and evaluation of improved cookstove performance is a critical factor in program success; however, consistent evidence indicates water boiling tests and controlled cooking tests are not representative of stove performance during daily cooking activities, and there is no ability to link these tests to kitchen performance tests during normal daily cooking activities. Since emissions from cookstoves contribute heavily to regional estimates of carbonaceous aerosols and other short-lived greenhouse species and given the current importance of stove performance tests as a basis for global climate prediction models and IPCC inventories, improvements in performance testing are critical to derive more representative estimates. Here real-time combustion efficiencies and emissions rates from daily burn cycles of open fires and improved stoves in Mexico are used to propose a new approach to stove performance testing, using simple and economical measurement methods, based on replication of the distribution of emission rates and combustion efficiencies seen during daily cooking activities in homes. This approach provides more relevant information for global climate models and inventories, while also providing a means to recreate representative emissions profiles in a laboratory setting for technical analyses. On the basis of emission rates and combustion efficiencies during normal daily cooking, we suggest performance criteria that can be used as benchmarks for laboratory testing of improved stoves in the absence of site-specific information, although requiring confirmation by field testing during daily cooking activities.

Standardized techniques for monitoring and evaluating (M&E) changes in indoor air quality and stove fuel performance were developed and deployed in two NGO-led programs to disseminate improved cookstoves (ICSs) in India and one in Mexico. This paper describes the objectives and characteristics of these monitoring and evaluation methods and how they were deployed. The results showed major and mostly statistically significant improvements in 48-hour indoor air pollution concentrations in those households using the stoves one year after introduction. Kitchen levels of carbon monoxide reduced 30-70 % and concentrations of small particles reduced 25-65 %. Results for stove performance were mixed, with some stoves achieving improvement in one or another of the short-term metrics that are part of the water boiling test (WBT) used to evaluate stoves in laboratory (controlled) settings. The kitchen performance test, which measures fuel use in households under actual use, was less easily conducted because of high variation and difficult field logistics. The results are more promising, however, with statistically significant reductions in fuel use per person ranging from about 20 to 67 %. From the results, it also seems clear that several indicators of stove performance derived from the WBT are not good predictors of actual fuel use and thus should be confined to evaluations during the design stage of stove development. In two of the sites, the reductions in pollution roughly matched those in fuel use, although in the third, indoor air pollution may have reduced a bit more. This indicates perhaps that for all the monitored stoves, much or all of the benefits of each type came from improving the heat transfer into the pots and not from either increased combustion efficiency of the fires or stove-venting

Little quantitative monitoring and evaluation of the impacts of improved stoves have been performed in Mexico. Grupo Interdisciplinario de Tecnologia Rural Apropiada (GIRA) has recently disseminated 4,000 improved Patsari cookstoves, most of them in the Purepecha region of Michoacan state, Mexico. In paired comparisons in a subset of kitchens in a single community before and after installation of an improved Patsari cookstove, 48-hour average kitchen concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were reduced by 66 % (n = 32) and 67 % (n = 33), respectively. Kitchens that had more elevated concentrations during the baseline measurements demonstrated more dramatic reductions, as the overall variability was reduced when the improved stove was used. Thus, the Patsari stove provides an effective means of reducing kitchen air pollution and potential benefits of installing these stoves are considerable. Although requiring significant additional resources, the Household Energy and Health (HEH) Project catalyzed a much broader investigation into health, climate, environment and societal impacts of Patsari stoves, which has had a greater impact on public policy than the direct impact of the number of improved stoves installed in these communities.