High efficient Mewar Angithi stove testing in rural Kenya

Abstract

Three billion people worldwide use biomass daily for cooking, endangering health, climate, forests and biodiversity. Extensive solutions have been proposed in the literature to reduce the wood usage by increasing the efficiency of the cooking stoves. The major challenges faced are: cultural inertia to change, budget limitation and technological sophistication. This document examines if the wood-savings achieved in Rajasthan India through Mewar Angithi (MA) insert can be replicated in rural Kenya. MA local prototype construction and testing in the field was done. Analysis of field data and heat transfer simulations were performed. The achievement of 66% savings in firewood usage indicates the feasibility of this low-cost, low-tech solution to rural areas in Kenya and eventually in the rest of the Sub-Saharan region.