Issues of Affordability and Modern Energy Technology:
Barriers to the Adoption of Cleaner Fuels for Cooking
Prof. Anoja Wickramasinghe
Coordinator
National Network on Gender and Energy (NANEGE) Sri Lanka
Dept. of Geography
University of Peradeniya
Peradeniya
Sri Lanka.
Tel: +94-081-2374536; Fax: +94-81-2232343
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Abstract
Access to modern and cleaner fuels for cooking is being considered as a crucial entry point for achieving human, social and economic development of the poor, particularly of women in many developing countries. This paper, with field information and analysis constructs a broader picture on barriers to the adoption of cleaner fuels for cooking and the implications of lack of access to clean sources. Data gathered from 3 administrative districts, covering 2269 households in rural Sri Lanka on the patterns of fuel utilization and the socio economic contexts of the respondents are used. The analysis reveals that three key contextual conditions are important in deciding the transition from traditional biomass to clean sources by the households. The first is the felt need for switching over to cleaner sources. In about 68 percent of the cases, even if households have clean sources of energy such as electricity and have access to kerosene and LPG, the transition from biomass to these sources is not a priority due to their easy access to sources and ability to get biomass without direct financial costs. The second is lack of access to modern energy technologies which impedes the possibilities for using locally available renewable sources of energy such as water and biomass for generating cleaner sources of energy for cooking. The third is the risk of adopting clean source like LPG, kerosene and electricity where prices get increased at alarming rates and makes such sources unaffordable in cooking, to produce services that are primarily meant for human wellbeing.
Based on field data, this paper suggests the necessity for adopting community-based integrated approach and strategic measures to enhance local partnership through financing, extension mechanisms and resources governance.
Background
Issues of clean cooking fuels are complex and urge local solutions to make a global change. The 2.4 billion people who do not have access to clean cooking fuels are in developing countries and live in poverty. They satisfy their cooking fuel requirements through direct combustion of biomass; wood, agricultural and forest residues, dung etc. The correlation between poverty and energy; access to clean fuels in particular, has influenced the global community to look into the issues of energy access from the perspectives of poverty. For instance, in year 2000, 1.1 billion people estimated to live on incomes below one dollar a day and nearly two thirds of the these lived in Asia – Pacific region with 432 million (39.2%) in South Asia and 61 million (23.4%) in East Asia and the Pacific (UNDP, 2004). The vast range of literature available on cleaner cooking fuels and sustainable development has made it clear that a rapid scale up of modern cooking fuel supply and use should be in place to assure multitude of short and long term benefits to health, productivity, agriculture, women’s welfare etc. The contextual differences that exist within and between countries are quite significant, but most circumstances demonstrate that, when compared with the use of clean fuel for lighting, emphasis given to provide/produce clean fuel for cooking is not visible. Sri Lanka, being heavily depended on biomass as a source of cooking fuel, and direct combustion in hearths in converting raw materials to useful energy, could be taken as a case to examine the issues.
For instance, the energy sector profile for Sri Lanka, provided in the National Energy Balance (ECF, 2003) stated that “The bulk of firewood and other biomass resources are used for cooking in rural households despite the fact that they have access to grid electricity. Even though the majority of energy needs of the rural population are fulfilled by the use of firewood, its application in electricity generation is not widespread”. The total situation on the use of indigenous primary sources of energy in Sri Lanka, as it is shown in Table 1, reveals that ‘cooking’ is strongly connected with the biomass, while the others, the clean sources are connected with commercial application and lighting.
Table 1. Indigenous primary sources of energy in Sri Lanka
Indigenous Energy Source / Typical User Group / Typical Applications / Scale of UseBiomass / Household / Cooking / Widespread
Commercial / Hotels, Bakeries / Widespread
Industry / Tea drying, Brick and Tile / Widespread
Hydropower / Electricity utility owned large multipurpose systems / For retail to customers / Major power plants
Commercial grid-connected / For sale to utility / About 24 power plants
Village-level off-grid electricity / Household use / About 110 power plants
Industrial off-grid electricity / Tea industry / Less than 50
Industrial mechanical drivers / Tea industry / Negligible, one or two remaining factories
Solar Power / Solar photovoltaic / Household lighting / About 50,000 units
Grid connected PV / For sale to utility / One unit
Solar Thermal / Hot water systems in commercial and domestic sectors / Widespread
Informal use / Household and agricultural use / Widespread
Wind / Utility-owned power plant / For retail to customers / One pilot plant
Off-grid power plant / For residential use / About 25
Water pumping / Agriculture / A few dozen
Other informal sue / Limited use / Negligible
source: ECF, 2003.
The biomass remains as a promising source in the total energy picture and the sectoral energy use pattern indicates that it is composed of 58% biomass, 35% petroleum and 7% electricity. In 2003, the sectoral consumption of energy showed that the households, commercial and other sectors consumed over 50% of the total energy, and the remaining 50% is consumed almost equally by industrial and transport sectors. The outstanding feature is that the heavy consumption of biomass by the household, commercial and others. 81% of the energy used by the household sector is biomass, 10% petroleum and 9% electricity.
This phenomenon clearly displays the use of biomass as the main source of cooking energy throughout the country, and leads to raise several questions. Why is it that cooking energy is not pushed into the energy mainstream or the agenda of the energy mainstream and this question should be raised, particularly from two perspectives? The first is associated with the development, be it related with the Millennium Development Goals or the Sustainable Development. The second is related to justice, rights and human wellbeing. This paper is structured, drawing attention to the field data colleted from 2,269 households covered during field surveys conducted in 2006-2007 in three administrative districts; Badulla, Matale and Moneragala in Sri Lanka.
Issues of Cleaner Cooking Fuels
Cooking with fuelwood and residues is the common practice throughout Sri Lanka, particularly in the rural areas covered in this study. Access to reliable sources with high calorific fuelwood and their free availability is the primary concern of those who rely on biomass as a source of cooking fuel. The issues of cleaner fuels for cooking are complex and connected with multiple causes that are stemming from the contextual conditions that are predominant in developing countries like Sri Lanka. The crucial necessity for providing cleaner fuels has been discussed very widely, from the perspectives of energy services particularly in linking the UN Millennium Development Goals with energy services (See Havet, 2003). UNDP and others (2005) stated that, there are multiple pathways by which those cooking with solid biomass can benefit from switching at least partially to the use of clean – burning cooking fuels. The issues are been placed very seriously from the perspectives of health, in relation to the detrimental health effects and mortality caused by indoor air pollution (See Smith, 2000; Reddy, 2000; Pandey, 2000). The concentrated particulate matter in smoky homes leads to pneumonia and respiratory infections. Indoor air pollution is responsible for nearly half of the more than 2 million deaths each year that are caused by acute respiratory infections (WHO, 2002). The emphasis placed on cleaner cooking fuels, is global than local, at least in the context of Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, it is driven directly by the multiple advantages of using pollution free cooking fuels, particularly their contribution to poverty reduction, gender equity, health and the development process. Providing cleaner cooking fuels for satisfying one of the key energy requirements itself is a challenge that has the capacity for reducing energy service gap and also the gaps in development. It has not been entered either into the dominant energy paradigm or sustainable development, so in many circumstance solutions are sought locally by women. The empirical evidences, during the past, have made it clear that nearly 2.4 billion people use traditional biomass fuels for cooking. UNDP and others (2005) stated that, “without scaling up the availability of affordable and sustainable energy services, not only with the MDGs not be achieved, but by 2030 another 1.4 billion people are at risk of being left without modern energy”. The tendency for increasing the number of people, families and the households depending on solid biomass for cooking is high not only due to the demographic changes, but primarily due to the increasing cost, competing demand for family income and the difficulty of switching over to cleaner fuels.
Sri Lanka being a country blessed with multiple production systems of agro-forests from which over 70% of the ‘fuelwood’ is obtained indicates the wide range of potentials to be taken into consideration in providing clean energy or clean energy carriers for cooking. At least over 18 million people out of the 20 million of the total population, in around 4 million households relies on fuelwood and the locally available materials for cooking and use traditional technologies in combustion to meet their day to day energy requirements.
Clean cooking fuels are perceived by the policy makers as an issue exaggerated and articulated by the feminist. The reasons behind this is quite clear, because cooking fuel is obtained without placing a financial pressure on the state, mostly by women as silent service providers, shouldering most of the problems by themselves. The issues of clean fuel are in fact, according to the experience are associated with two domains. The first is associated with technology where raw materials, the biomass is used in bulk and converted to useful energy through a kitchen-based direct combustion by individual households units. The second is associated with the end utilization units where combustion takes place in various conditions, without standard technologies or paying attention to the requirements for service generation; the ‘cooking’. The issues of clean cooking fuels emerge in relation to poor and direct combustion and the combining of combustion for energy generation without technological standards for energy service generation. It can be argued that issue here is a technological mismatch, or the lack of attention given to convert the primary source of raw materials, the biomass, used by the household sector for energy generation into a clean form of energy carrier for cooking and other uses.
Energy Ladder and Energy Use Pattern
Energy is an indispensable service provider for all 2,269 households meeting household based lighting and cooking requirements. These two services are quite strongly differentiated. If cleanliness is used as a yardstick, the cooking fuel remains in the traditional, unhealthy, messy, technologically poor and a dirty domain indicating that no shift had taken place, in terms of improving the situation. Field data reveals that a progressive change had occurred in securing clean source of energy for lighting. Only 4% of the households use wood fires in outer-yards of the households for illumination to reduce wildlife risks. The percentage of electrified households in Matale is extremely high, observed with 72%. Socially and economically it is in an advanced position when compared with the other two districts. The state policy on rural electrification has made a progressive change in these areas enabling 52% of the households to have electricity or solar energy for lighting, 48% use kerosene wick or bottle lamps for lighting; 43% have electricity and 9% use solar panels.
With regard to cooking fuels there had been no transition, it is marked with a one single step system without any elevated steps in the energy ladder, with no clean or healthy fuels is found throughout (See Table 2). This situation is testimonial of lack of attention given to cooking fuels, while fuel for lighting had moved upward in the energy ladder.
Table 2. Energy use pattern by source (% of Household)
District / # of Hh. / Lighting / CookingElectricity / Kerosene / Solar / Fuel-wood / Kerosene / Electricity / LPG / Bio-gas
Badulla / 530 / 48 / 47 / 5 / 100 / -- / -- / -- / --
Moneragala / 639 / 10 / 72 / 18 / 100 / -- / -- / -- / --
Matale / 1100 / 72 / 23 / 5 / 89 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 1
source: Field survey, 2006-2007.
The main source of cooking fuel for all 2,269 households is biomass, and only 121 households occasionally use kerosene, electricity and LPG as a supplementary source of cooking fuel (see Figure 1). Combustion is done in semi-circular mud-hearths by 2061 households and 268 use improved stoves, but also occasionally use 3 stone open hearths when large scale cooking is needed. Does a clean cooking fuel or the cleanliness a matter of concern remain a pressing question?