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TIDE: Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE) is operational in the cook stove field since 2000, initially in Karnataka and Kerala but now expanding in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh as well. Many of the stove designs, promoted by the TIDE, originated at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Each stove which TIDE develops and promotes is designed around a specific current sector of use, and with user participation, so that the existing process requires minimal modification. In addition, TIDE will commercialise a system only if it will be affordable without subsidy in the industry which it is designed for. This need to balance cost, functional design and efficiency inevitably leads to compromises, but means that the stoves are viable commercial products. The stoves save at least 30% of biomass use, and more in some sectors. TIDE estimates that the 10,500 stoves installed up to the end of 2007 are saving 43,000 tonnes/year of biomass, and that a cumulative 1,50,000 tonnes of biomass has been saved since the scheme started in 2000. These savings in biomass use represent significant savings in the production of greenhouse gases, estimated at about 77,000 tonnes/year CO2.
Following are the main models promoted and sold by the TIDE:
- Sarala House Hold Cooking Stove
- Three Pan Astra House Hold Cooking Stove
- Large Cooking Stove for mid-day meals, Kalyanamantapas and Ashram
- Hotel and Bakery Stove
Winrock International India: Winrock International India (WII) is a non-profit organization working in the areas of natural resources management, clean energy and climate change. With the aim, to reduce and optimize the consumption of firewood and to help these small entrepreneurs in saving their fuel costs and improve the health of the people working in the kitchens of road side dhabas, WII is actively working in this field since 1988. Since the inception of programme, WII has so far sold more than 3000 improved biomass cooked stove in the Andhra Pradesh state.
To begin with WII initially conducted detailed market research and on field visit exercises to know the technological barrier with the available technologies in the market and application oriented specifications. Later on, WII, modified the improved cook stoves designs to suit the requirements of users maintaining the same basic design of the earlier stove. The improved cook stove is a 2 pan stove based on the combustion technology. In this design the volume of the combustion chamber has a uniform 1:6 fuel, air mix capacity, i.e. one kilogram of fuel requires six kilograms of air for better combustion. The stove’s inner wall was insulated by using cold face insulation bricks. Grate, primary and secondary openings were provided for efficient burning of the fuel and chimney to let out the smoke. A top metal plate which is mounted on the stove body is filled with fire crate (castable) refractory to retain heat (it retains heat upto 1200º C). Priming hole is provided near chimney for serving two purposes firstly, for heating the chimney when the stove was started for the first time and secondly, for removal of the soot that gets deposited on the inner side of the chimney walls at regular intervals approximately once in 15 days. A heat recovery vessel is provided after 2 pan position to utilize the waste heat which escapes through the chimney. These improved stoves were constructed by specially trained local masons and fabricators. About 80 local masons and 12 fabricators were trained to construct the improved stoves based on this design. Once the stoves were installed and commissioned at the selected sites, performance evaluation was carried for these stoves after a week or ten days. It was noted that the improved stoves showed 20 to 22 percent improvement in efficiency in comparison to the traditional stoves which had only 8 to 10 percent efficiency. Fuel consumption was reduced by almost 50 percent. Carbon monoxide emissions were noted to be around 480 µg/m³ in comparison to 4,260 µg/m³ recorded by older model stoves.
Shifting from conventional stoves to improved cook stoves involved both one time and recurring costs. Hotel owners had to invest 12,000 to 15,000 as one time cost depending on the model of the stove installed. For a stove consisting of one tawa and one pan the cost was around 12,000 and for a 2+1 type stove costs were about 14000 to 15,000. Dhaba owners bore the entire cost of installing improved cook stoves in their hotels. Recurring costs were around 1500 which had to be spent once in every 12 to 18 months to replace the grate and fire crate cement.
Improved stoves saved about 50 to 60 percent of the fuel previously consumed by conventional stoves. On an average 75 to 100 kg of firewood was saved daily by each improved stove installed amounting to a total saving of about 3,600 tons of firewood per year for 100 stoves, which is equivalent to reduction in 3,402 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. In financial terms the hotel owners could save about 72,000 per year on fuel expenses. Overall 7.2 crore were saved by all hundred hotel owners. Reduction in firewood consumption automatically reduced the carbon emissions.
Improved stoves also brought hygiene in the kitchen area by reducing smoke and soot in the air. Concentration of carbon monoxide was brought down to 480µg/m³ from 4260 µg/m³ in the indoor air. Room temperature of the kitchen was also brought down by at least 8º C.
ARTI: Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) is an NGO based in Maharashtra, founded by a group of scientists and social workers in 1996. The mission of the organization is to serve as an instrument of sustainable rural development through the application of scientific and technological knowledge.
As per the ARTI, ‘chulhas’ are being traditionally used by the rural house holds to fulfill there day to day thermal energy requirement like for indoor heating, water heating and cooking. Almost 8 kg of fuel is required for an average family size, comprises of 6 members. The fuel used by the rural house holds are mostly fuel wood, crop residue and cow dung cake. To use these bio-fuels traditionally employed chulhas are very wasteful – they use only 10% of the total heating potential of the fuel burnt in them. A more serious disadvantage of the traditional chulhas is that they produce a lot of smoke, soot and unburnt volatile organic matter, which not only blacken the pots and the walls of the kitchen, but also lead to Indoor Air Pollution (IAP). IAP is one of the leading, and yet often neglected, causes of deaths in the developing world. It adversely affects the health of the rural householders by slow health degradation and setting the onset of killer respiratory diseases. In fact, several constituents of the flue gas condensate are even known to cause cancer. Housewives and infants are affected the most by these pollutants, because they are maximally exposed to the flue gases.
- Laxmi
- Bhagyalaxmi
- Grihalaxmi
- Vivek
- Sampada
- Agni
AVANI: Even as the chilly winter gives way to a balmy summer of the Himalayas, the villagers of the Central Himalayan region are filled with trepidation. They are apprehensive of the forest fire that smoulders in the lower ranges of the Kumaon and Garwhal regions in Uttarakhand almost annually in the summer months, mostly from April to June, its orange blaze destroying the forest, the ecosystem and affecting livelihoods of the villagers. In addition to the destruction of the flora and fauna of the region, the effect of the forest fire is felt most harshly by the over 7 million people in the Central Himalayan region living close to large tracts of pine forest. The devastating fire diminishes their access to fuel wood, water and other life support systems. The pine chir tree that grows in abundance in this area offers little shade. But it has its advantage for the nearby villagers who use it as fuel wood. It is the combustible pine needles that carpet the forest and is one of the several causes of forest fire in the area.
AVANI - a voluntary organization working in the villages of Central Himalayas in the field of appropriate technology- has found a productive use for the pine needles. In course of such initiative AVANI presented the task to develop the development of cook stove, which can burn the pine needles, to the D-Lab Design and D-Lab came up with the solution and introduced spiral path stove. This cook stove uses unprocessed pine needles as an alternative fuel. The design incorporates a slow feed of compressed pine needles that burn and gasify in an insulated chamber. The resulting fire is directed along an innovative spiral geometry to increase the burn path of the fuel, thus allowing for a clean, efficient burn that spreads heat across the bottom of the pot.
TERI: TERI was formally established in 1974 with the purpose of tackling and dealing with the immense and acute problems that mankind is likely to face within in the years ahead- on account of the gradual depletion of the earth's finite energy resources which are largely non-renewable and
- on account of the existing methods of their use which are polluting
Over the years the Institute has developed a wider interpretation of this core purpose and its application. Consequently, TERI has created an environment that is enabling, dynamic and inspiring for the development of solutions to global problems in the fields of energy, environment and current patterns of development, which are largely unsustainable. The Institute has grown substantially over the years, particularly, since it launched its own research activities and established a base in New Delhi, its registered headquarters. The central element of TERI’s philosophy has been its reliance on entrepreneurial skills to create benefits for society through the development and dissemination of intellectual property. The strength of the Institute lies in not only identifying and articulating intellectual challenges straddling a number of disciplines of knowledge but also in mounting research, training and demonstration projects leading to development of specific problem-based advanced technologies that help carry benefits to society at large.
The Institute’s growth has been evolutionary, driven by a vision of the future and rooted in challenges looming today, based on an approach that looks beyond the present and across the globe. TERI has, therefore, grown to establish a presence not only in different corners and regions of India but is perhaps the only developing country institution to have established a presence in North America and Europe and on the Asian continent in Japan, Malaysia and the Gulf.
The Energy-Environment Technology Development (EETD) Division of TERI focuses on products and services based on renewable energy technologies and resource efficiency through multidisciplinary approach and close user interaction. The activities range from providing biomass-gasifier-based electricity in remote rural areas to promoting green concepts in the urban settings to utilizing biomass in small- and micro-enterprises efficiently.
The BETA (Biomass Energy Technology Applications Area) of EETD (Energy-Environment Technology Divison) is one of the premier groups in the country working in the development of biomass energy based solutions. The objective of the Area is to develop and disseminate technologies for efficient utilization of biomass, agriculture residues, and many industrial wastes as fuels. The mission of this area is to develop technologies for processing of biomass residues and wastes and converting these into more convenient forms for efficient utilization for various applications. The group is committed to take the technologies developed in the laboratory to the field.
Improving the indoor air quality inside house by providing clean technology for thermal application is one of the focus of TERI for the rural India development. TERI has been continuously involved in technological development and improvement of the cook stove technology. In course of one of the imitative, TERI has implemented the improved cook stove program in North India. The program covers 86 house holds in more than 20 villages of Solan district of Himachal Pradesh. Based on local initiatives, cookstoves with embedded water tanks were developed. These stoves are also found suitable for those using hot water in the summer due to cold weather in the hills. By the time the programme completed, 241 cookstoves had been installed in Solan and Shimla districts.
Apart from these, TERI is one of the crucial partners for implementing the “National Biomass Cook Stove Initiative” project by MNRE.
Shell Foundation: The Shell Foundation is providing funding to Envirofit International, which is based at Colorado State University (CSU) and working closely with CSU’s Engines and Energy Conservation Laboratory, to develop and disseminate improved cook stoves in India. Envirofit is working with local Indian distributors to come up with rural supply chains for the cook stoves. Envirofit intends to achieve its large-scale goals through “enterprise-based business model driving economic self-sustainability, voice-of-the-customer; market research, disciplined ground-breaking research and development, modern product development process, robust durability and emissions testing’, global supply chain supporting centralized quality-controlled mass-manufacturing, multi-tiered distribution & sales networks, location-specific marketing strategies, partnerships with global organizations and local MFIs & NGOs, and global awareness raising and brand building about Envirofit and the problems we look to address.”
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