The Impact of Cookstove Adoption and Replacement on Fuelwood Savings

Cookstove adoption and cookstove use are two conditions that are not commonly considered when comparing the cost and benefit of rural energy options. This study uses field data on improved cookstoves implemented in a rural West African village to estimate the impact of alternative cooking options prevalent today. Because approximately one-half of women own more than one cookstove, and use each of the stoves, it is unlikely that any single cookstove option will replace the three-stone fire. If current cooking trends are maintained, the fuelwood savings of village-wide implementation would thus be a mere 6.4% of the rated cookstove savings for a small single-burner cookstove that is partially adopted and only used for some cooking tasks. Even if the small single-burner cookstove was used for all meals less than the observed maximum cooking capacity of 18 kg, this village-wide savings would only amount to one-third of the rated cookstove fuelwood savings. The derated fuelwood savings based on stove stacking is expected to more closely approximate the realized fuelwood savings of a cookstove program rather than the idealized case of 100% adoption and 100% replacement. Additional discussion on investment impact-fuelwood displaced per dollar invested-is provided for four cookstove options. The high investment impact of the artisan improved cookstove and the next generation single-pot cookstove suggests they be chosen for implementation, yet the long lifetime of the institutional cookstove may be an attractive option for onetime funders.