Africa

Susan's Cooking Club - Kenya Kitchens

15 April 2013 - 5:16am

A wonderful afternoon with Susan Kamau's Kenya Kitchens Cooking Club. Susan is a Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves Ambassasdor Chef and we very pleased to partner with her to have a open afternoon at UCHUMI SUPERMARKETS LTD to hold a baking demonstration and discussion about energy conservation, clean cooking, nutritional baking as a business and of course healthy delicious eating!

The Mini-Kiln Kit

2 November 2012 - 2:29am

Kinyanjui

a full kin of maize cob and branch charcoal made in less the a day

the maize cob charcoal cooks with high heat and little smoke.

Four very good reasons why to make your own charcoal from dry maize cobs.

They are FREE!! (minimal processing required and are widely available as a farm waste product)
Maize cob charcoal is very easy to make and leaves few charcoal fines. (no need for expensive briquetting)
They are easy to light and burn very hot with little ash and are perfect for cooking a quick meal.
Using maize cob charcoal means ZERO reliance on tree's and forests, LPG gas or unreliable and expensive electricity supplies for your cooking fuel needs. And with a Cookswell Jiko you can bake, boil, roast and toast all of your favorite foods

Air Jordan 1

File attachments:

maize cob charcoal in action

Quad 2 Stove Performance Report

23 October 2012 - 5:48pm

Anderson, Paul

Jackson

Paul Anderson, Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation (CREEC)

The Centre for Research in Energy and Energy Conservation (CREEC) is a not-for-profit organization which works “to enhance access to modern types of energy through research, training and consultancy”.

The CREEC offers independent stove testing services, and has recently tested the Quad 2 Stove.

For the full test report and method see the pdf:
http://www.stoves.bioenergylists.org/files/quad_2_stove.pdf

The center tested the Quad 2 Stove and found that:
The Quad stove boils 5L of water in 27 minutes. To boil and simmer 5L of water, it uses 636g of dry wood and has an energy use of 11713kJ. It has a thermal efficiency of 42% during the high power phase and 41% during simmering. It has a turndown ratio of 1.4, an indication that the stove’s firepower can be controlled for different cooking regimes. Its fuel use is considered to achieve significant, measurabe health and environmental goals according to the Lima Consensus Tiers of stove ranking.

With regards to safety, the stove scored 77.5% and is rated GOOD and is considered a Substantial Improvement according to the Lima Consensus Tiers of stove ranking.

File attachments:

Hot Water Heating in South Africa

19 April 2012 - 11:55am

Jordaan, Quintus

A Geyser, is a hot water heater in South Africa. There are many houses that are not connected to conventional utility grids, and heating water with electricity and natural gas is expansive and/or impractical.

Tankless, batch hot water heaters directly connected to the shower etc, are a great single-use application for an efficient stoves.

Why pay someone else's charcoal bribe?

22 March 2012 - 12:52pm

Kinyanjui

Teddy

Did you know that more then half of the price of a bag of charcoal in Nairobi is money needed for paying bribes to get illegal bush charcoal to town? Save your money (and Kenya's forests) by making your own charcoal at home using only your own twigs and pruned tree branches. (or timber mill waste)

Kenya

Kinyanjui Charcoal Kiln

Wood

tree branhes

SeTAR Sustainable energy Technology and Research Centre

24 December 2011 - 1:26pm

Crispin Pemberton-Pigott, December, 2011

The Sustainable energy Technology and Research (SeTAR) Centre is a multi-disciplinary research facility that operates under the aegis of the Faculty of Science at the University of Johannesburg. The SeTAR Centre was formally launched in March 2010. The centre is housed in a cottage within the University of Johannesburg Research Village on the Bunting Road Campus, with dedicated office space and a testing laboratory in the basement of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) building.

The SeTAR Centre is engaged on research programmes that focus on energy poverty in both rural and urban areas of South Africa; the role that energy has to play in climate protection in the sustainability of a megacity (Gauteng); the public understanding of science; and networking on energy issues in the Africa region. The SeTAR Centre provides research facilities for energy studies for masters and doctoral students through its affiliation with the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies (GEMES) in the Faculty of Science.

One of the Research Programs is the Basic Energy Programme

The programme focuses on energy poverty and acts as an innovation hub for the development of basic energy solutions for cooking, heating, lighting and productive use for the low income communities. Services and research streams include:

Testing Laboratory: SeTAR centre has a fully equipped basic energy testing laboratory for use as part of research activities or on a fee-for-service basis. The centre has advanced equipment and automated systems to ensure all tests are carried out satisfactorily and competently. The SeTAR centre was commissioned to characterize thermal efficiency and gaseous emissions of a variety of fuel/stove combinations. In the process of evaluating these stoves, the research staff have also been engaged in the development of written procedures, leading to the Heterogeneous stove Testing Protocol (HTP).

Energy Poverty Research: Focusing on energy access, socio-economics and user needs and aspirations. This assists in designing sector-specific intervention.

Energy Design Innovation: Involved with the design and innovation of safe, clean and affordable basic energy technologies.

Networking and Information: Coordinating a regional (Africa) university-based People’s Energy Network (PEN) and also developing a South African network and industry association.

Attached is the 2011 Annual Report,

File attachments:

stove_comparisons_january_2011.xlsx

South Africa

Low Smoke Chulha

27 November 2011 - 10:31pm

Low Smoke Chulha Team

The Low Smoke Chulha has been enabled by Philips Design in close co-operation with NGOs, self-help groups, local entrepreneurs and potential users. Low Smoke Chulha provides a safer home environment for families, reduces the risk of respiratory illness, and supports indigenous ways of cooking. The Low Smoke Chulha is not only smokeless but also helps every household save 10 kilos of firewood each house each day which is 4 tones of firewood a year!

See our page: http://www.lowsmokechulha.com/

Supports indigenous fuels and ways of cooking.

Modern Energy Saving Stoves in East African Kitchens

26 November 2011 - 1:33am

Kinyanjui

The Cookswell Energy Saving Cookstove (Jiko) Company

Preparation Of Charcoal Using Agricultural Wastes

22 November 2011 - 2:02pm

W. Bogale, Published in the Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, Vol 5, No 1 (2010)

Ethiopia

Charcoal briquette

Stove Costs and Perspectives - Lusaka, Zambia

19 November 2011 - 3:11pm

Cook

Cecil Cook with Technoshare, November, 2011

Baseline Study of the Socio‐economic Patterns of Charcoal, Wood and Stove use in greater Lusaka, Zambia

Some highlights:

Previous stove improvement projects have failed to properly appreciate the central role played by one and two person tinsmith enterprises that produce and sell ordinary mbaulas at very low prices. The tinsmiths of Lusaka constitute a well distributed network of producers and sellers of ordinary mbaulas fabricated from scrap sheet metal who conveniently service all the major markets and townships of the city.
In addition to underestimating the multiple competitive advantages of a well distributed network of tinsmiths who fabricate and directly sell a charcoal stove that everybody knows how to operate, previous stove improvement projects failed to appreciate just how poor the bottom 2/3rds of the Lusaka economy really is and how little money low income families are able to save from their daily and weekly income for the purchase of a replacement mbaula when the old one finally breaks down. It is the initial retail price of an improved stove, not how much money it will save a household during the course of a month, that determines whether they are willing and able to spend two, three, four or more times the K4 000 to K6 000 for a 20cm ordinary mbaula. The ordinary mbaula is the industry standard. Every household without access to firewood, no matter how poor, has to pay out at least K4 000 once or twice a year to purchase a replacement mbaula.

Cecil did a good job of discovering the buying patterns in households of at least 3 different income levels, and uncovered that the ordinary (less effecient) Mduala stove has great traction among ordinary lower income members of Lusaka Zambia because the stoves work as expected, and they are inexpensively produced by local stove manufacturers.

He has also shared with us some of the highlights of the report in the attached pdfs.