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20.10.2018 Science

National household wood cook stove development project launched

20.10.2018 LISTEN
By GNA

A national Challenge geared at supporting the development and design of indigenous energy-efficient household wood cook stoves among state actors and the energy sector Civil Society Organizations, has been launched in Kumasi.

It is part of a collaborative partnership between the Ghana Alliance for Clean Cooking (GHACCO) and SVN Netherlands Development project, under the 'strategic support to the clean cooking sector in Ghana' project'- a comprehensive wood stove development programme for Ghana.

The goal is to help address the prevailing technology gap regarding improved, portable and affordable wood stoves for the millions of households in Ghana who currently do not cook with cook stoves properly designed to save energy and reduce smoke emissions, for safer health and a clean environment.

Mr. Mohammed Lukumanu Aminu, CEO for GHACCO, indicated that the outcome of this action was expected to feed into the World Bank's Ghana Energy Initiative (GETI) that sought amongst other objectives to increase access to safe and clean cooking.

He noted that the lack of any known locally-designed improved wood stove for household in the country was unhelpful to efforts targeted at reversing the negative impacts of climate change.

In view of this, he said, the Government of Ghana has targeted the dissemination of two million improved domestic stoves by year 2020 and GHACCO also aimed to distribute five million cook stoves the same year.

Mr Aminu expressed worry over the low penetration of improved wood stoves for households, saying, it was almost non-existent and that millions of potential households lagged behind in improved charcoal stoves usage.

Another major challenge was that market development strategies and targets in the past were lumped together into a general cook stove programme without specific plans for the rural wood users.

Mr. Alex Kwame Donyinah, a Senior Energy Advisor at SNV Netherlands Development Organization, said the project was being implemented in Ghana due to the very high wood-fuel usage rate in the rural areas of the Country.

He said a consultant has been engaged to assess the possibilities and preconditions for wood-fuel based solutions markets as an intermediate solution.

This, he said would be done in areas where the penetration of LPG could only be expected in the longer term, or where fuel-mixing was necessitated by the preparation of traditional foods or as a coping strategy.

GNA

By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA

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