Rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa have experienced limited progress towards the sustainable development goal of universal access to clean cooking. Energy-efficient biomass cookstoves (EEBCs) are considered a potential bridge technology, but EEBC models vary widely, and there is a lack of understanding about their real-world use implications. We conduct a randomized controlled trial in rural Senegal to compare a low-cost, locally produced stove designed to achieve fuel savings and an expensive, imported stove shown to be more efficient and emissions-reducing in the laboratory. We find that the two EEBCs perform similarly: both reduce fuel consumption but have no significant impact on cooking time and fuel collection, emissions, or objective health measures. We conclude that the technically advanced option is not cost effective for most of our sample, while the low-cost EEBC can be seen as a stop-gap solution that primarily reduces fuel use. The findings underpin the importance of customizing EEBC dissemination to local context and baseline cooking patterns.

中文翻译：

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通往清洁烹饪的桥梁？塞内加尔农村节能生物质炉的成本效益


撒哈拉以南非洲的农村地区在实现普遍获得清洁烹饪的可持续发展目标方面进展有限。节能生物质炉灶 （EEBC） 被认为是一种潜在的桥接技术，但 EEBC 模型差异很大，并且对其实际使用影响缺乏了解。我们在塞内加尔农村进行了一项随机对照试验，以比较旨在节省燃料的低成本、本地生产的炉灶与昂贵的进口炉灶，该炉灶在实验室中被证明效率更高且减排。我们发现这两种 EEBC 的性能相似：都减少了燃料消耗，但对烹饪时间和燃料收集、排放或客观健康措施没有显着影响。我们得出的结论是，对于我们的大多数样本来说，技术先进的选项并不具有成本效益，而低成本的 EEBC 可以被视为一种权宜之计，主要减少燃料使用。研究结果证实了根据当地情况和基线烹饪模式定制 EEBC 传播的重要性。