Improved Cook StovesLessons Learnt

SELCO SOLAR LIGHT PRIVATE LIMITED#742, 15th Cross, 6th Phase, JP Nagar

Bangalore 560078 KarnatakaIndia

Ph- 91-80 – 26654509Email- selco@selco-india.com

Website- www.selco-india.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- Introduction- Background- Need- Prototype & Testing- Products- Awareness- Distribution & financing- After Sales Service- Lessons Learnt

Introduction

SELCO India, a social enterprise was established in 1995 with a goal to provide reliable, affordable, and environmentally sustainable energy services to underserved homes and businesses, especially in the rural areas. With customized technology, appropriate financing and door step service, SELCO wanted to break the myths that: “poor people can not afford technology, poor can not maintain technology and one can not run a commercial venture when meeting a social objective”. In partnership with regional rural banks, cooperative banks and microfinance institutions, SELCO continues to innovate appropriate financial mechanisms to bridge the gap between energy needs and affordability.

Recognising the need for an improved cooking solution for the underserved households, SELCO introduced improved biomass cook stoves in 2006 in partnership with Shell foundation`s breathing space program. Though SELCO was not involved in developing & manufacturing the product, it was closely working with product developers in field testing and providing user inputs in order to get an appropriate cooking technology to be developed.

This report is a look back to the successes/failures of the initiative and learnings that can be useful in improving standard of cooking solutions for the poor & underserved.

Background

Indoor air pollution kills multiple times more people than any other deadly disease in the world. Most of the victims being women & children from developing/under-developed countries in Asia & Africa. Lack of better cooking methodology and cook stoves are believed to be the reason why millions of women & children are vulnerable to premature death across the world. More than half of which comes from India. In order to improve the standard of cooking, reduce indoor air pollution and reduce usage of firewood, many national & international agencies have started their improved cook stove initiatives.

SELCO in partnership with Shell foundation, started it`s cook stove initiative in 2006 with an objective of providing improved biomass cook stoves to underserved households across Karnataka and Gujarat.

Need

Need for improved cook stoves is unfortunately an unfelt need to most of it`s target population. Lack of basic education and awareness has kept them in the dark about the negatives of indoor air pollution related issues.

In the history of cooking technologies, the three stone stove has survived the stone-age. Different type of traditional cook stoves have seen no or negligible improvements over time. That itself defines the level of attention paid by many to develop the cooking technology. Having mentioned that, numerous cook-stove programs taken up by various Governments, including Government of India`s Improved Cook Stove (ICS) program has failed. The reason being the typical approach of trying to fit a solution to a problem and trying to provide a standard stove (one size fits all approach) without realizing the actual needs are very different from region to region e.g. Stoves for making Roti used in North India are very different than Stoves made to cook Raagi mudde in Karnataka.

Prototype & Testing

Using it`s expertise in providing solar energy solutions to the underserved population, SELCO worked with cook stove developing organizations like Colorado State University, Envirofit, Prakti Design,

ARTI, BP OORJA, Chulika, Navagni etc. to develop a package of appropriate technology and financing for the poor. Having observed the need of people, SELCO worked closely with these institutions in making the products as user friendly as possible.

SELCO also conducted independent user level testing of various cook stoves in order to understand their preference, willingness and ability to afford. (Few reports attached in annexure)

Products

SELCO tested a lot of cook stoves but decided to distribute Single & double burner stoves made by Prakti design and Sarai charcoal cooker made by ARTI.

PRAKTI Stove:

The cook stove is designed to burn wood and other biomass wastes. It saves 40% of wood and burns 50% faster than the traditional stove emitting 70%-80% less smoke. The two burners provide the flexibility of heating water or boiling milk on the secondary burner when the primary burner cooks the main item. The stove is designed based on the rocket stove technology and very simple to maintain and service.

Prakti improved cookstove

SARAI cooker:

Sarai is a stainless steam steam cooker. It is a non-pressurised cooker, into which you put about 150 ml of water and then lower into it a wire cage, which holds three cookpots, one on top of another. The steam pot has a lid which is kept closed while the food is being cooked. The heat is provided by a charcoal burner, which is designed to hold just 100 g of charcoal or a single honeycomb briquette of 100 g. After the coal has caught fire, the steam pot containing the food to be cooked is placed on the stove. A hollow cylinder, also made of stainless steel, surrounds the entire assembly, including the stove. The gap between the steam pot and the stainless steel cylinder surrounding it is just 5 mm. The flue gases generated by the stove escape through this gap. In this way, the pot is heated on all sides, instead of just from the bottom. The boiling and evaporation test showed the efficiency of this gadget to be 70%. Beans, rice and vegetables of a family of 4 to 5 are cooked with just 100 g of charcoal briquettes. It takes between 45 minutes to an hour to cook the meal.

Sarai cookers

Awareness: SELCO adopted multipronged approach to raise awareness about indoor air pollution related issues including demo campaigns, newspaper articles, leaflets and brochures. It also provided few cook stoves free with solar lighting systems in order to improve the adoptability.

Information leaflet

Distribution & Financing

SELCO tried multiple ways of selling the stoves to the targeted population

- As a package with solar lighting systems- Sales through SELCO Business Associates- Direct Sales through SELCO branches/Executives- Sales from demo stalls- Sales through SHGs /NGOs/Microfinance Institutions- Through micro-entrepreneurs

While the sales were encouraging in the initial stages, it came down due to lack of financing support from financial institutions.

A stove priced between Rs.500 & Rs.1000 was not a bankable product for scheduled banks while it was too expensive through microfinance institutions as they charge high rate of interest.

SELCO also tried to build micro entrepreneurs who could take a fairly large loan from a bank to purchase multiple stoves and then resell it to end users and in the process earn their livelihood. The program went well in Gujarat in partnership with SEWA bank selling hundreds of Sarai cookers. However, it did not show much result in Karnataka.

After Sales Service

Providing after sales service proved to be high transaction costs for SELCO. So it tried to provide after sales service, part replacement, warranty claims through the same supply chain as the sells. However, it proved to be a challenge as the cost of service went high and time taken by the technology partner in providing replacements and repair was too long to keep the customer happy.

LESSONS LEARNT

A survey conducted by SELCO tried to find out the end user prospective of improved biomass cook stoves. The end use chosen were a random sample of 400 users who bought/received the cook stove at least 2 years back. The study conducted by a third party consultant tries to focus on the design, affordability, durability and user friendliness of the cook stove which are essential in improving the cook-stove program better in coming days.

PRODUCT

Design: Most of the improved cook stoves in the market including the ones SELCO distributed are not yet mature enough to satisfy the need of people. The cooking needs vary vastly from region to region even within one states in India and people use different fuel (e.g. cow dung, coconut

branches, dry leaves, big wood lugs, charcoal etc.) in different regions. However the products designed are standard ignoring all these realities.

The survey shows people`s priorities are mostly divided between less smoke and efficiency of the technology while, cooking faster is a priority among

only 18% of the respondents. However, an observation made by the surveyor also mentions people`s interest in a good looking stove which has certain aspirational values. A large number of people have modified the stove in someway or the other to make it fit into their daily life.

An improved biomass stove modified by the end user.

Efficiency: Most of the stoves in the market claim to be efficient, smokeless and fast. However all these claims come with conditions of use which people are not used to. Even after multiple demonstrations, people go back to the traditional ways of using their stoves which doesn’t result in maximum efficiency or reducing smoke. According to the survey this has forced more than 50% of people to not use the stove any more or use it occasionally.

42% of end users say the improved stove they used is more efficient than the traditional stove. However its was difficult for any end user to quantify the efficiency or wood savings. Interestingly many of the end users who say the stove is efficient than traditional are not using it any more due to various other reasons.

Durability: Most of the improved stoves are made of metal which is vulnerable to corrosion as there is always food and water spill on the stove while cooking. Most of the improved biomass stoves come with insulated material that breaks while the user is trying to push the firewood inside. The feedback survey shows more than 95% of these stoves are in a bad condition after 2 years of use.

Broken leg of a stove has forced some modification at end user level.

Unfortunately about 85% of the stoves are not in a good shape after 2 years. The most common problem observed was broken leg, broken insulation brick and missing pot holders. While some of the partly damaged stoves are still in use with some modification or adjustment by end users, other are just dumped in the backyard.

Affordability: Improved cook stoves of different brands in India are priced between Rs.600 and Rs.2000. Comparing with the benefits they provide in the entire life span, they prove to be more expensive than the traditional stoves.

Since the traditional stoves are locally made often with negligible cost investment, a stove priced at Rs.1000 also looks very expensive to end users. A large percentage of end users surveyed said they didn’t get value for money from the improved stoves. Hence a serious focus on using local material and reducing price should be given by stove developers in the future.

Market: SELCO has experienced more acceptance of these stoves in areas where people pay a high price for fire wood e.g. urban slums. In areas where people get fire woods for free, the willingness to pay a high price for an improved stove is very low.

SELCO`s business associates and sales executives point out that it was very difficult to sell a cookstove to a village customer as convincing them about the benefits and showing them value in the stove was a challenging task due to lack of awareness and availability of free firewood. While the USP(unique selling point) for most of the cookstoves use are efficiency, less smoke and fast cooking. For most of the end users in villages, efficiency doesn’t matter as firewood is free. Less smoke is also not an issue as a lot of them like the smell of smoke in food as well as people in southern Karnataka use the smoke to dry crops in monsoon. Faster cooking is not much of a requirement for which they will have to buy a new stove. This shows, though there is a huge potential market for cookstoves, getting things right for the market is still a big challenge.

SUPPLY & FINANCING CHAIN

SELCO`s learning from distributing the stoves has been not very easy. As the market for the stoves are not yet demand driven and the technology is not mature enough to offer what it claims, it becomes difficult to sell a 1000 rupees stove to somebody earning 3000 rupees a month. The traditional ways of distributions be it a dealership model or a door to door selling model are not appropriate for this product as a lot of back ground awareness is required to create a market for cook stoves.

SELCO`s experience says one of the better ways of distributing stoves to it`s right customer segment is Microfinance Institutions with a strong base within the community. However the microfinance should be willing to create a separate financial product with longer term loans and lower interest rates in order to make it viable instead of fitting the stove product into their existing scheme of finances.

The only way banks can finance cook stoves is through micro-entrepreneur model. The experiment by SELCO in selling Sarai cookers in Gujarat through micro-entrepreneurs shows if an appropriate entrepreneur is identified, trained and financed by a bank under a low interest loan scheme it can succeed.

SERVICING

As mentioned earlier the expenditure on service is not making the cook stoves a sustainable product for a social business like SELCO. In order to make the after sales service affordable and easy, it has to be decentralized through the microfinance partners, micro-entrepreneurs and Self Help Group networks. Another way of reducing the after sales service cost is to make the product more durable.