Improved Cooking Stove (ICS)
In 2010, the Nova Institute was contracted by ICCO (Kerk in Actie) to develop and evaluate local woodstove practices in two communities - one urban- (Standerton) and one rural community (Letsitele). The main outcome of this contract is that the Nova Institute should provide an improved domestic energy solution that can be implemented and taken to scale in rural and urban communities with similar profiles. The improved domestic energy solution should mainly focus on wood users, however, it should also provide an alternative solution for users of various other domestic energy sources, such as coal, paraffin, LP gas and cow dung.
To date, research in the ICS Project has shown that the following four conditions can be improved by this initiative: inefficient use of domestic energy sources, depletion of natural resources, health (indoor air pollution, burning accidents and accidents that occur during wood collection) and poverty.
In the rural community, where the three-stone fire is mainly used, we have found that the next step to be taken is to develop an improved cooking stove. However, our technical research has shown that solutions sought outside the technical, monetary and spatial constrains of the rural community, are favourable but cannot sustainably be implemented in the rural community. Then it was found that stoves similar to the ones favoured, can be developed locally, by improving the basic principles of a three-stone fire and by using materials locally available (e.g. kraalmis, clay, salt, water, etc.). Currently, five different prototypes are being implemented in households to be tested and developed towards a final prototype.
This photo illustrates the first successful bricks being made by the local rural community. The bricks and the materials used to make the bricks are then used to make the improved cooking stoves.
In the urban community, it was found that there is a variety of different domestic energy sources available. These include electricity, coal, paraffin, LP gas, wood and cow dung. Furthermore, a variety of different stoves are already being used. These include electric stoves, cast iron stoves, welded stoves, mbaula's, paraffin stoves, gas stoves and brick fireplaces. The weather / season (summer or winter) and the availability and cost efficiency of domestic energy sources mainly determine which energy source and stove are used. Consequently, in the urban community, an improved cooking stove will only be developed for the poorer outskirts of the urban community. In the urban community, the main development sought will rather be to produce briquettes out of waste materials obtained from the surrounding mines, farms and municipalities. If a briquette can locally be produced out of waste products, it might provide a good recycling initiative and it might be considered as a competitive and cheaper alternative to the array of currently available domestic energy sources.
The long term aim of the ICS project is to be able to provide improved domestic energy solutions that can sustainably be implemented and taken to scale in rural and urban communities in South(ern)-Africa. The sustainability of the ICS initiative, from a financial perspective, is developed with two main objectives. Firstly, local skills development and job creation, by providing households the skills and opportunities needed to start a small-scale entrepreneurship. This might include the production and sale of improved cooking stoves and / or briquettes. Secondly, the trade in Verified Emission Reductions is a big option when it can successfully be proved that the emission reductions are directly caused by the initiatives implemented by the ICS Project.