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GTZ HERA - Household Energy Programme - News from Boiling Point 51 - January 2006
[top] [end]HERA - your GTZ support for Household Energy by Verena BrinkmannThey are evergreen topics: Household Energy (HE) and energy efficient cooking stoves! While technologies are developed, tested and applied, the required strategies for large-scale implementation and up-scaling have only been implemented in a few individual cases. There is a need to further mainstream these strategies. HERA is the new Household Energy Programme of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). HERA formally started in December 2003 and is scheduled to end in November 2007. The programme follows in HEP's footsteps; the widely acknowledged former GTZ Household Energy Programme - with renewed energy! [top] [end]HERA's objectivesThe main objective of HERA is to further mainstream sustainable HE management into relevant projects and programmes to ensure basic energy security for households and small businesses. Basic energy security, in the context of HERA, covers thermal energy for cooking, baking, heating and productive use. The beneficiaries of the project are households and small businesses - low-income groups - with a special focus on Africa. The intermediaries for integration of basic energy security are projects and partners in development, linked through cooperative working in the areas of energy, environment, rural development, food security and health.[top] [end]HERA workshopTo further specify the role and responsibilities of HERA in a participatory way, an initial workshop was held in June 2005. For international GTZ project staff, and partners from other organisations, this workshop provided the opportunity to exchange experiences. Focus of the workshop was an inventory of proven tools & instruments for sustainable HE management and scaling-up. Over 30 participants defined their requirements for tools and instruments for support and largescale implementation of sustainable HE measures.HERA is working at four different levels:
[top] [end]HERA's lobbying activitiesTo highlight the relevance of HE, HERA is promoting and lobbying this topic, producing and distributing documents such as fact sheets and presentations. Topics include, among others, HE and health effects, HE and environment/ forestry, HE and the economy. The exchange of experiences and lessons learned with other energy-, health-, environment- elated projects is facilitated. HERA also lobbies relevant international organisations such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) or US Nations Environment Protection Agency (USEPA).HERA's advisory activities
HERA supports the conception and design of new projects and plans, implements and monitors on-going projects. Guidance for HE-related baseline development, project planning, implementation and monitoring is in preparation. [top] [end]HERA's activities in coordinating knowledge management and networkingInformation on household energy technologies, experiences as well as fuel types is provided by HEDON Household Energy Network. Therefore HERA supports HEDON as an important information and knowledge source.Information for the support of interventions is going to be provided along three pillars:
Networking activities have already started with Practical Action (formerly ITDG), Gender and Energy Network Energia, Global Village Energy Partnership (GVEP), WHO and HEDON as well as with the different GTZ projects. In future, HERA meetings with all network partners will be held on a regular basis. [top] [end]HERA's development of HE concepts and strategiesStrategies and concepts used will be analysed through case studies. Successful strategies and best practice will be taken-up by other projects.HERA is a dynamic and interactive project that really wants to make a difference to the HE situation in its partner countries with concrete ideas and strategic support. The programme aims at supporting the exchange around HE. Even though the webpage is still under construction, we hope it contributes to facilitating this exchange.
[top] [end]The ROCKET is launched in Southern Africa! by Paul Mushamba[top] [end]BackgroundWith field tests confirming up to 90% wood savings, coupled with a near smoke-free kitchen environment, the rocket stove has revolutionalised cooking in schools, hospitals and other large scale catering institutions in Southern Africa. This is not so strange considering that an ideal rocket stove, which is correctly dimensioned and constructed with suitable materials (including proper insulation), is known to achieve energy transfer efficiencies of up to 35% or more (1). In July 2004, biomass stove designers, builders and promoters met in Mulanje, a small town in southern Malawi to exchange experiences on efficient institutional stoves. They toured and observed cooking practices at the tea estates where rocket stoves have displaced the open fire in the preparation of meals for thousands of workers.[top] [end]Objective of workshopThe major objective of the July workshop was to bring representatives from different stove projects in East and Southern Africa to exchange experiences on fuel-efficient institutional cooking technologies and marketing strategies, as well as address challenges that impede large scale dissemination. The workshop coincided with the week long International Trade Fair in the city of Blantyre, where the different efficient stove designs were exhibited and demonstrated to the public.[top] [end]Criteria for a good fuel-efficient institutional stoveAfter presentations were made by different stove designers, builders and promoters, there was a long discussion to consider basic criteria or guidelines to which a good fuel-efficient institutional cook stove that burns biomass fuel should conform. These criteria were developed taking into account the requirements of key stakeholders in institutional cooking, that is cooks, catering managers, financiers/buyers, wood suppliers and stove producers. The recommended criteria are listed below (not in any order):
[top] [end]Rocket stove takes the leadOver the past year, the rocket stove has taken the lead among competing designs of efficient biomass stoves and has taken root in several projects supported by ProBEC/GTZ in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. An expert stove builder from APPROVECHO is now attached to ProBEC/GTZ and is training interested stove builders (see article by Peter Scott, BP50, p.7).Priced at about US$100 for a 100 litre-pot stove (which is far below that of competing technologies) hundreds of units have been marketed in the different countries, mainly in schools. For example, the World Food Programme has financially supported a number of schools in the region to purchase stoves under the School Feeding Programme. Stove production and marketing is in the hands of trained artisans, with ProBEC/GTZ playing a vital role in supporting these functions. Suitable mentoring organisations were identified in each country to offer technical and management advice to the stove artisans. For example, ITDG plays such an advisory role in Zimbabwe, while in Lesotho and Mozambique, structures of the German Development Service (DED) offer support to the technicians. Despite the large strides made so far however, a number of challenges of both technical as well as related to business administration need to be addressed. Most of the artisans still need strengthening in terms of technical capacity and financial resources. At the technical level, the identification of suitable materials, especially insulation which are locally available, have good thermal properties and are not too expensive still remains a challenge. [top] [end]Recommendations and future plansAt the end of the workshop, participants identified 3 key areas of activity requiring follow-up.The first one (which was considered to be very critical for the further promotion of efficient stoves to catering institutions) involves increased support to artisans/ stove producers in technical skills as well as business and marketing know-how. A strong recommendation was made to assist stove producers in doing market assessments, followed by the development of realistic business plans and marketing strategies. Whereas it is envisaged that organisations such ProBEC/GTZ and others have a role to play by availing or leveraging funding for such activities, raising of seed money from in-country sources is strongly recommended. The mentoring organisations should help in linking artisans to relevant support organisations in their respective countries. The second major activity for follow-up is the expansion of the rocket stove to other districts in the existing project countries and to new countries in the region. This constitutes a major challenge for the training function and more experts need to be qualified to cope with the increased scope of work. Already participants from new project countries (Zambia and Tanzania) undertook to go back and immediately do baseline surveys to judge the level of interest in the rocket stove and at the same time gather relevant information, e.g. common pot sizes in catering institutions and businesses, and assessment of available materials for stove construction and insulation. Finally, participants recommended concerted efforts to search for suitable insulation material within the activities of the different projects. This would entail doing trials of insulation materials and compiling a shortlist of recommended or proven ones. Thereafter, the shortlist should be circulated to interested projects & individuals. A discussion forum of the rocket stove has been started on the ProBEC/ GTZ website and all are welcome to give their contributions on this topic. [top] [end]References1) Scott Peter, The Rocket Stove Principle - A Presentation at the Stove Designers' APPROVECHO/GTZ, Johannesburg, 2003.
[top] [end]New Rocket stove design from Uganda by Peter ScottThis article contains some photos and a little update regarding this beautiful little Rocket stove that we put together in Uganda (Figure 1).
[top] [end]The skirtOne fixed skirt with a 1 cm gap maintained between the sides of the pot and the skirt as well as between the top of the skirt and the pot by 10 mm round bar. The stove will also be sold with an optional removeable skirt to accommodate smaller pots. Fortunately, pot sizes are quite consistent in Uganda so many households already own a standard medium size pot (Figure 2)
[top] [end]Pot supportsThree pot supports around the combustion chamber and the top plate are made from used oil drum lids (0.5 US$ each)[top] [end]Combustion chamberCut pumice blocks laid up with with 2 parts fine grog 1 part fine clay and 10% sodium silicate[top] [end]Top plate insulationThis is made from fine clay, exfoliated vermiculite and sodium silicate[top] [end]ShelfA 2 mm metal shelf is connected to a 6 mm round bar wood support. Building the shelf and the wood support together means users are less likely to throw away the shelf or the wood support (the shelf is needed to ensure that air gets into the stove underneath the wood).Figure 3 shows the stove in operation. Notice the water boiling, no visible smoke and only 2 pieces of wood. In the next few weeks 40 of these will be made, sold and placed in homes around Kampala. Our goal is to produce 10 000 in the next two years. This project is exciting as it is one of only two Household Rocket Stove Projects in Africa funded by the EPA and the PCIA ( Partnership for Clean Indoor Air ) that will monitor Indoor Air Pollution and fuel consumption before and after the introduction of the Household Rocket Stove. The stove was designed in conjunction with Kawere Muhammad (Figure 4 - top left) who is the executive director of UCODEA (our main implementer and stove producer in Uganda), and his staff of 14 metal workers and brick layers.
In 2003, I visited Uganda for three weeks and trained GTZ and UCODEA on using Rocket Stove principles. Since then, GTZ has built 30 000 built-in mud Rocket Lorenas (actually thatâs just in the last three months). UCODEA and others have built approximately 200 Institutional Stoves. Up until 2 weeks ago almost no work had been done on designing a portable, commercially viable Household Rocket Stove. This project is so exciting as this is the first time I have felt, in Africa, that we have the right materials (appropriate low cost insulative bricks â a pumice combustion chamber costs 2 US$) and the right criteria (people who have to buy wood and charcoal and are willing to buy improved wood stoves). Figure 5 shows Kawere playing the part of the impatient and hungry husband who wants to eat. The wife, played beautifully by Mrs Muhammad, telling her husband not to worry - with the new Rocket Stove food is coming fast!
So much work has been done with the Rocket Stove in Uganda. For example I kept bumping into people and I would ask THEM what they do for a living and they would say "Oh I'm a Rocket Stove Designer, What do you do?..." Many thanks to all of the people who helped with the Project: John and Brenda from EPA without their core funding absolutely none of this would have happened; Dana at CEIDH for coordinating; David at CEIDH for setting up the IAP monitoring; Kawere Muhammad and UCODEA for their hard work and flexibility when I changed the design 60 times in two weeks; Margaret Hammskerk for doing the Rocket Stove Logo; Helmut for Quality control; Phillipe Simonis, Lenoard Mugerwa and John Kutesakwe at GTZ- AP UGANDA for all of their support to UCODEA and the Rocket Stove; and of course for (Uncle) Larry Winiarski for inventing the Rocket Stove in the first place! [top] [end]Download the original article HERA - Household Energy Programme by Agnes Klingshirn (579 KB)[top] [end]Contents: Boiling Point 51 - Sharing information and communicating knowledge
Categories: Boiling Point 51| GTZ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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11 June 2007; Last edited:
28 June 2007; Version: 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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