Efficient Cook Stove Project Launch
Yesterday, energy4everyone, together with its local partner Innovative Finance (www.myinnovativefinance.com), launched the energy efficient cook stove project at Adabraka Fish Market in Accra – and it was a huge success.
The efficient cook stoves, which Ghanaians call coal pots, burn 40% less charcoal than traditional cook stoves. As a result, the beneficiaries save money as they don’t need to buy as much charcoal. The cook stoves are more efficient because they have a ceramic liner that retains the heat. In addition, the efficient cook stoves produce less smoke and, indirectly, decrease deforestation because less charcoal is used.
This first phase of the Adabraka project had identified between 100 and 150 vendors that wanted efficient cook stoves. Originally, we had scheduled two days to distribute the stoves at the market. However, the stoves were so popular that all of them had been assigned and distributed in four and half hours! Not only that but we also have a new list of vendors who expressed an interest in obtaining an efficient cook stove if, or hopefully when, there is a second phase to the project.
The Adabraka Fish Market energy efficient cook stove project utilizes a subsidized micro-finance model. To achieve this structure, energy4everyone partnered with Innovative Finance, a local Ghanaian micro-finance institution that has the network and expertise in providing micro-finance in Accra. energy4everyone funded the purchase of the efficient cook stoves in advance and, along with Innovative Finance, distributed them to the vendors, once they had passed the appropriate credit checks. The vendors will then repay the amount of the efficient cook stove over a period of two or three months. Without this ‘loan’ the vendors either could not afford an efficient cook stove or the interest rate charged by lending institutions would make the purchase far more expensive.
Both energy4everyone and Innovative Finance will monitor the project and the repayment profiles over the next few months to see what beneficial revisions need to be made to the structure and process for any future project phases.
You can view the photographs of the project launch at Flickr www.flickr.com/energy4everyone.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.