|
 |
Nishant Bioenergy: In 1999, when Ramesh Nibhoria decided to use his briquetting consultancy experience in launching a small-scale business, he had never imagined that his efforts will revolutionise community cooking methods and will give a fillip to India’s renewable energy scenario. Today his firm- Nishant Bioenergy Pvt. Ltd. is renowned for its patented and largest range of community cooking stoves that have also won him the most coveted accolades like the Ashden Climate Care Award and the winner of Petroleum Conservation Research Association award. Nibhoria’s unique Sanjha Chulha (community cook stove) has not only transformed the waste agricultural product of little economic value into a cash income for the farmers, but has also given a boost to more than 200 biomass briquetting plants that were on the verge of closure.
Realising that one size doesn’t fit all; Nishant Bioenergy Pvt. Ltd. designs stoves and furnaces on the basis of the requirement of the targeted market segment. Accordingly, there are four segments:
- Mid day meal manufacturer stove that can cook more than 40,000 meals per day in a centralised kitchen. This stove is provided with a briquette fuelled steam boiler and stem-kettles that save up to 70% of fuel bills when replaced with LPG.
- Micro entrepreneurs stove for making fried snacks (namkeen) is an automated powdered biomass stove (Surya stove) having temperature controlling facility. As a result fuel feed can be controlled on the basis of the heat requirement of the food being cooked (or fried). This stove saves up to 50% of fuel when replaced with diesel fired stove.
- Company and college hostel canteen stove for cooking meals for 1000 people. For such institutions Nishant Bioenergy Pvt. Ltd. suggests steam boiler as well as biomass briquette fired Earth stoves (model ES10) and leaves it to the client to decide on the option depending on their financial ability. These options, when replaced with LPG help save up to 70% in fuel bills.
- Restaurants and road side dhabas stoves come in two models-ES2 and ES3 and save up to 70% of fuel when replaced with LPG. These models come with briquette fired, Earth stove operated with DC powered blower.
The firm has a small workshop near Chandigarh, Punjab, where manufacturing of stoves is done and orders are delivered. They have already installed more than 350 stoves in many parts of the country including Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra for diverse clients, including clients making 40,000 meals per day, to small road-side restaurants. Till date, the installed capacity of the systems is more than 11 MW that has led to a saving of more than 2000 ton of LPG per annum, besides saving 8000 tons of carbon dioxide.
British Petroleum/ First Energy: British Petroleum (BP) and later First Energy have sold over 4,00,000 stoves, mostly in Maharashtra and Karnataka and some in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. BP’s stove, called “Oorja” (“energy” in Hindi), is fueled by pellets made from agricultural waste. The Oorja stove utilizes pellets because BP/First Energy discovered that users saw chopping wood into small pieces for the firebox as an obstacle and preferred a steady supply of processed fuel that requires minimal additional effort. The waste must be pelletized in manufacturing facilities, each of which is at the district level and serves a radius of 200 to 250 kilometers. First Energy recognizes that while increasing stove production should be relatively straightforward, scaling up fuel production will be more challenging. The stoves and pellets are delivered through twenty-five distributors at the regional level and a network of 3,500 dealers. Of these dealers, 2,500 are women entrepreneurs and 1,000 are already-existing shops that are involved in other activities. These women entrepreneurs, called “jyoti,” demonstrate how the Oorja stove works to the village and then sell it. Motivation and family support are important criteria during the jyoti selection process, after which they receive training in demonstrations and sales. The shop-owners receive training in cooking technology so that they understand and can explain the product they are selling. First Energy intends to invest in creating more networks and distribution channels from the ground up in order to extend the reach of its product. So far villagers have not received any financial support, but First Energy wants to explore financial options, such as microcredit loans, in areas where people cannot afford to purchase the stoves and biomass pellets.
Philips: Philips developed new cook stove models. The models are both natural draught and forced draught and the price of natural draught model is Rs 1000 and that of forced draught in the range of Rs 3500-Rs 3700. The company is currently discussing with various state governments the possibility of adoption of the model in the ongoing or future state government initiatives on improved cook stoves.
SELCO: SELCO Solar Pvt. Ltd, a social enterprise established in 1995. SELCO India is very well established solution provider for lighting using solar PV route, but they started working on improved cook stoves program mid 2008. Before the final launching, SELCO field tested various cook stoves developed by the variety of technical institutions for almost 2 years. Later on, after gaining the confidence about the performance and reliability, SELCO started selling the cook stove with very well established supply chain route. As per the SELCO clients prefer stoves which match their current fuel supply, cook faster, save fuel, emit less smoke and are portable. Cook stove should be capable of cooking food for a normal family size of the 5-6 members. Considering the local inputs and demands, SELCO takes little time to modify and resize the standard cook stove for the final installation.
The improved biomass cook stove of SELCO is all designed by ‘Prakti Design Lab’ and is having approximately 40% efficiency, emits 70%-80% less smoke (from traditional cookstoves) and is designed to meet the cooking requirements of rural households. Now SELCO is providing the cook stove models with double burner, which can be capable of cooking food for 10 persons at a time. Keeping in mind the availability of charcoal in the Gujarat region, now SELCO has started selling charcoal cooker.
Prakti Design: Prakti Design, a company conceived in 2007, is based in Pondicherry, a small former French colony in southern India, administered by India’s federal government. Formed by an international team of engineers and designers, the philosophy behind the company is to apply state-of-the-art design and engineering processes to the design and manufacturing of ecological products that will serve the basic energy needs of India’s poor. The team’s hope in doing so is to combat indoor air pollution, desertification and deforestation as well as to provide a range of adapted stoves to rural areas. By late 2009 Prakti had built up a portfolio of low-cost improved cooking stoves for both household and institutional users.
Prakti engineers are currently testing an increased efficiency, easy to use stove which they have named LEO. They hope that LEO will not only reduce wood consumption but also the levels of soot emitted in the burning process. Prakti has taken on a huge task using a shoestring budget which includes the personal savings of the seven company members. The team believes there is a market for products aimed at satisfying the needs of the “bottom of the pyramid” (BOP). Improved cookstoves have traditionally been difficult products to promote. One of the main reasons is competition with the widely used three stone fired stoves - that are free. In addition, end users are not yet concerned enough by indoor air pollution or global warming to change their habitual practices and prices of new improved stoves are also an issue. Prakti seeks to try and tackle these problems and is currently trying to develop a high technology, durable stove for less than $3 each.
|
