Location: Malawi (Rural)
Duration: 2013 – present
Partner: Total Land Care (TLC)
Carbon Standard: United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) (PoA 9558)
The vast majority of the rural population in Malawi cook on highly inefficient, traditional three-stone fires, which are often located inside poorly-ventilated kitchens with tiny windows, if any. This not only causes severe household air pollution and chronic health problem; it limits economic productivity and leads to some of the highest deforestation rates in the world. We partnered with Total Land Care to upgrade TLC’s original mud-brick only cookstove by adding metal parts to lift the thermal efficiency of the stove from 15-16% to 28-30%. The TLC Rocket stove as it is commonly called, has proven very popular and is widely sought after in rural Malawi. We and TLC have been constantly improving the stove program and design with the benefit of learning obtained from completing the first program deploying the stove over the past 3 years: a 64,000 stove program funded by BioCarbon Group and CQC, with a large Emissions Reductions Purchase Agreement from the Swedish Energy Agency (SEA).
Current efforts focus on training villagers to maintain their own mud-brick and mortar infrastructure while we focus on increasing the durability of the metal parts aiming for a ten-year life under constant daily use.