Quantitative Stove Use and Ventilation Guidance for Behavior Change Strategies

Abstract

Achieving World Health Organization air quality targets and aspirational fuel savings targets through clean cooking solutions will require high usage rates of high-performing products and low usage rates of traditional stoves. Catalyzing this shift is challenging as fuel and stove use practices associated with new technologies generally differ from those used with traditional technologies. Accompanying this shift with ventilation improvements can help further reduce exposure to emissions of health damaging pollutants. Behavior change strategies will be central to these efforts to move users to new technologies and minimize exposure to emissions. In this article, the authors show how behavior change can be linked to quantitative guidance on stove usage, household ventilation rates, and performance. The guidance provided here can help behavior change efforts in the household energy sector set and achieve quantitative goals for usage and ventilation rates.

Notes

¹For context, rural kitchens in developing countries generally have high ventilation rates (∼10–40 air exchanges per hour (Bhangar, 2006; Cowlin, 2005; Park & Lee, 2003; Saksena, Thompson, & Smith, 2003) in comparison with those in developed regions. Guidance from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, for example, recommend that use of kitchen fans in the United States should result in five air changes per hour (ASHRAE, 2010).

²More technical details on the air quality model's performance can be found in Johnson and colleagues (2011).