Upscale of clean cookstoves critical to save Ghanaian lives

 Firewood and charcoal remain the dominant source of cooking and heating fuels in Ghana.

The country’s shortfall and high cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and other energy sources has increased demand for wood-fuel.

However, conventional charcoal-fuelled stoves contribute to deforestation and cause harmful smoke emissions and health problems. Toxic cookstove smoke contributes immensely to chronic illness, killing about 14,000 Ghanaians annually.

The use of efficient biomass cooking stoves is promoted as a healthy alternative for a greener economy.

Some enterprises in the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi have been engaged on developing clean technology solutions for economic value creation and health improvement.

The producers are however challenged in reaching high scales of manufacturing. They need to have in place good management structures, financial systems, business coaching and access to technical support.

The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is seeking to support these local producers to achieve high production levels.

“Maybe you are producing five or ten thousand stoves and now you have to go to 100,000 or half a million stoves and plus; when you get to that level, you need a much better business structure and so we help businesses build capacity; we help engage banks to show them this is a profitable business that they need to invest in,” stated Kwesi Sarpong, Regional Market Sales Manager for West Africa.

The Alliance, a public-private partnership led by the UN Foundation, has allocated US$2million to support such local entrepreneurs to contribute meaningfully to the cleaner fuels sector.

The objective is to promote sustainable alternative to clean cooking – technologies in clean cookstove contribute to reduction in smoke and toxic emissions, reduced cooking time and fuel requirement and improved cooking efficiency.

Mike Commey of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is engaged in research and development of institutional cookstoves.

“The research we are doing, whether LPG or firewood or charcoal or any energy source, it would have to reduce the amount of energy you use in cooking,” he said.

Mike and his team are focused on installing the institutional cookstoves in Senior High Schools and other mass production food markets.

With an expected rise in demand, following the attraction of the technology by kitchen crew at the Kumasi Secondary Technical School (KSTS), Mr. Commey says the team is ready for scale up.

“It takes us two weeks to build; now we want to scale it down to two days. So if there are two masons in that school, they should be able to build three stoves in two days,” he stated.

The Ghana Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and Fuels is leading activities to promote the environmental and social impacts in the manufacture, sale and use of efficient cooking stoves in Ghana.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh