Household wood cookstoves (Uganda co-development)

Carbon offset funds have enabled the increased distribution of efficient wood burning cookstoves in Uganda to households and institutions.

HOW IT WORKS
More than 95% of Ugandans rely on wood as a fuel for cooking and boiling water in both rural and urban areas. The conventional cookstoves used are inefficient which increases the amount of wood required to prepare a meal. The project will replace conventional cookstoves with a more efficient stove called a “rocket stove”. These new efficient household cookstoves use a design that consists of an insulated elbow-jointed combustion chamber that increases combustion efficiency and retains heat while placing the cooking pot to the hottest point above the flame. The rocket stove further increases heat transfer by having the cooking pot rest within a skirt that retains heat.

CARBON OFFSETS MADE IT HAPPEN
Without carbon offset funds, the status quo would be the inefficient conventional wood cookstoves. The new stove is too expensive for most families and institutions prompting most Ugandans to keep their inefficient conventional cookstoves despite government public awareness programs around the importance of reducing indoor air pollution. However, the traditional and cheaper stoves found within the market have much lower efficiencies. The aim of the project is to promote the widespread distribution of these efficient cook stoves. Compared to baseline, the new cookstoves will reduce fuel wood consumption by more than 50%.

OTHER BENEFITS OF THE INSTALLATION
Transitioning to the new highly efficient cookstoves will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of particulate matter that is released into the atmosphere. UN studies show that worldwide indoor air pollution from cookstoves causes approximately 1.5 million premature deaths per year and debilitating illness for tens of millions more – most of them women and children. The new cookstoves will greatly improve indoor air quality, which will positively impact respiratory health, birth weights and mortality rates.