Conner Harwood
Pronouns: He/Him/His
UROP Fellowship: University of Michigan Energy Institute
Research Mentor(s): Pam Jagger, PhD
School for Environment and Sustainability
Presentation Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2020 | Session 2 | Presenter: 7
Authors: Conner Harwood and Pamela Jagger
Abstract
Low- and middle-income households in Lusaka, Zambia rely heavily on charcoal burned in stoves with very low combustion efficiency as their primary source of cooking and heating energy. Reliance on biomass fuels contributes to climate change and deforestation and has negative impacts on human health and well-being. Improved cookstove technologies, offering more efficient cooking (e.g., the EcoZoom rocket stove sold by VITALITE), or motivating a transition to clean cooking (e.g., biomass pellets burned in the Mimi Moto microgasification stove sold by Supamoto), may mitigate the negative consequences of heavy reliance on charcoal. Barriers and drivers of adoption of improved cookstoves are poorly understood, hindering adoption and sustained use of new technologies and fuels. Using baseline and follow-up data from a survey of 1377 households in Lusaka, we find that households with higher incomes, more household members, and more years of formal education adopt improved cookstoves at a higher rate. Additionally, female-headed households are more likely to adopt new stoves. To further refine our analysis, we use propensity score matching regression techniques to match a distribution of already adopters and predicted-to-adopt households. This will provide balanced household samples, allowing us to estimate the impact of improved cookstove adoption on Zambian households with respect to fuel expenditures, charcoal use, and time spent cooking. Cookstoves that burn charcoal more efficiently or use processed biomass fuels (e.g., pellets) are expected to decrease household fuel expenditures and charcoal used and decrease time spent cooking. Understanding the socioeconomic status and demographics of households adopting new stoves allows social enterprises like VITALITE and Supamoto to target their marketing strategies and increase take-up among potential customers.
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Research Disciplines
Environmental Studies, Social Sciences
