{"title":"Evaluation of methanol stove usage, health and safety impacts in four South African informal settlements: Users perspective","authors":"David Kimemia, Ashley Van Niekerk","doi":"10.1016/j.esd.2025.101673","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In South Africa about two million people depend primarily on kerosene combustion in simple stoves. Due to poor construction of these stoves and fuel characteristics, the users are regularly exposed to risks of burn injuries, conflagrations, and obnoxious emissions. The wellbeing of the affected populations could be improved through kerosene substitution with cleaner and safer energy technologies. Candidate technologies for kerosene replacement in the country include electricity, LPG and emergent methanol stoves. This study reports on a post-intervention evaluation of methanol stoves in four informal settlements in Rand West Local Municipality in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The evaluation was accomplished through a quantitative survey that was administered to a random sample of 186 households in May 2023. This descriptive evaluation apprised users' interaction with the stoves, particularly satisfaction with safety, thermal and emissions performance, fuel affordability and availability. In addition, the study interviewed four government officials on programme objectives vis-à-vis outcomes and four vendors on the fuel supply situation and status thereof. Quantitative data was analysed with IBM SPSS Statistics Version 28, while thematic analysis was utilised to make sense of textual responses. The findings indicated that users were highly satisfied with the performance of the methanol stoves especially its ease of use (99 %), clean combustion (98 %), safety (97 %), reliability (93 %), and fast cooking (89 %). However, people were dissatisfied with the eventual fuel scarcity and comparatively higher cost of the fuel per cooking cycle. Overall the results suggest that a scaled-up methanol stove intervention is possible if fuel distribution and costing are adequately addressed. The lessons learnt in this study are useful to domestic energy planners across the African continent and the Global South.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":49209,"journal":{"name":"Energy for Sustainable Development","volume":"85 ","pages":"Article 101673"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Energy for Sustainable Development","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082625000237","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ENERGY & FUELS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In South Africa about two million people depend primarily on kerosene combustion in simple stoves. Due to poor construction of these stoves and fuel characteristics, the users are regularly exposed to risks of burn injuries, conflagrations, and obnoxious emissions. The wellbeing of the affected populations could be improved through kerosene substitution with cleaner and safer energy technologies. Candidate technologies for kerosene replacement in the country include electricity, LPG and emergent methanol stoves. This study reports on a post-intervention evaluation of methanol stoves in four informal settlements in Rand West Local Municipality in Gauteng Province, South Africa. The evaluation was accomplished through a quantitative survey that was administered to a random sample of 186 households in May 2023. This descriptive evaluation apprised users' interaction with the stoves, particularly satisfaction with safety, thermal and emissions performance, fuel affordability and availability. In addition, the study interviewed four government officials on programme objectives vis-à-vis outcomes and four vendors on the fuel supply situation and status thereof. Quantitative data was analysed with IBM SPSS Statistics Version 28, while thematic analysis was utilised to make sense of textual responses. The findings indicated that users were highly satisfied with the performance of the methanol stoves especially its ease of use (99 %), clean combustion (98 %), safety (97 %), reliability (93 %), and fast cooking (89 %). However, people were dissatisfied with the eventual fuel scarcity and comparatively higher cost of the fuel per cooking cycle. Overall the results suggest that a scaled-up methanol stove intervention is possible if fuel distribution and costing are adequately addressed. The lessons learnt in this study are useful to domestic energy planners across the African continent and the Global South.
在南非,大约有200万人主要依靠简单的炉灶燃烧煤油。由于这些炉子的结构和燃料特性不佳,使用者经常面临烧伤、火灾和令人讨厌的排放物的风险。可以通过用更清洁和更安全的能源技术替代煤油来改善受影响人口的福祉。该国替代煤油的备选技术包括电力、液化石油气和紧急甲醇炉。本研究报告了对南非豪登省兰德西地方市政当局四个非正式住区甲醇炉的干预后评估。评价是在2023年5月对186户家庭随机进行的定量调查中完成的。这种描述性评价告知了用户与炉具的互动情况,特别是对安全性、热和排放性能、燃料可负担性和可获得性的满意程度。此外,研究还就方案目标与-à-vis成果采访了四名政府官员,就燃料供应情况和现状采访了四名供应商。定量数据用IBM SPSS Statistics Version 28进行分析,而专题分析则用于理解文本响应。调查结果表明,用户对甲醇炉的性能非常满意,特别是其易用性(99%),清洁燃烧(98%),安全性(97%),可靠性(93%)和快速烹饪(89%)。然而,人们对最终的燃料短缺和每个烹饪周期相对较高的燃料成本感到不满。总体而言,结果表明,如果燃料分配和成本得到充分解决,扩大甲醇炉干预是可能的。这项研究的经验教训对整个非洲大陆和全球南方的国内能源规划者很有用。
期刊介绍:
Published on behalf of the International Energy Initiative, Energy for Sustainable Development is the journal for decision makers, managers, consultants, policy makers, planners and researchers in both government and non-government organizations. It publishes original research and reviews about energy in developing countries, sustainable development, energy resources, technologies, policies and interactions.