Experimental evidence on promotion of electric and improved biomass cookstoves
| Autor: | Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Abhishek Kar, Marc Jeuland, L Morrison, Jessica Lewis, Vasundhara Bhojvaid, Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Nithya Ramanathan, Rajesh Thadani, Nina Brooks, L Lipinski, O. Patange, I. H. Rehman, M Vora, Faraz Usmani |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
price subsidies
Indian Himalayas 020209 energy Supply chain media_common.quotation_subject Control (management) Mature market Social Sciences 02 engineering and technology 010501 environmental sciences Sustainability Science 01 natural sciences Supply and demand Promotion (rank) Market analysis 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering supply chain health care economics and organizations 0105 earth and related environmental sciences media_common Multidisciplinary technology adoption Environmental economics Market liquidity Intervention (law) improved cookstoves |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol 116, iss 27 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| ISSN: | 1091-6490 0027-8424 |
| Popis: | Significance Three billion people rely on traditional stoves and solid fuels. These energy use patterns exacerbate the global climate crisis (via increased carbon emissions) and forest degradation/deforestation (via daily fuelwood collection), and expose billions to toxic air pollution generated by dirty fuels. Widespread adoption of improved cookstoves (which use cleaner fuels or burn solid fuels more efficiently) may ease this “triple burden,” but recent research casts doubt on their potential, given low and slow diffusion. We challenge this pessimism based on a multiyear, three-phase field study comprising diagnosis, design, and experimental testing involving 1,000 rural Indian households. We show that demand for these improved energy technologies is high when supply chains are robust, technologies match local needs, and income and liquidity constraints are relaxed. Improved cookstoves (ICS) can deliver “triple wins” by improving household health, local environments, and global climate. Yet their potential is in doubt because of low and slow diffusion, likely because of constraints imposed by differences in culture, geography, institutions, and missing markets. We offer insights about this challenge based on a multiyear, multiphase study with nearly 1,000 households in the Indian Himalayas. In phase I, we combined desk reviews, simulations, and focus groups to diagnose barriers to ICS adoption. In phase II, we implemented a set of pilots to simulate a mature market and designed an intervention that upgraded the supply chain (combining marketing and home delivery), provided rebates and financing to lower income and liquidity constraints, and allowed households a choice among ICS. In phase III, we used findings from these pilots to implement a field experiment to rigorously test whether this combination of upgraded supply and demand promotion stimulates adoption. The experiment showed that, compared with zero purchase in control villages, over half of intervention households bought an ICS, although demand was highly price-sensitive. Demand was at least twice as high for electric stoves relative to biomass ICS. Even among households that received a negligible price discount, the upgraded supply chain alone induced a 28 percentage-point increase in ICS ownership. Although the bundled intervention is resource-intensive, the full costs are lower than the social benefits of ICS promotion. Our findings suggest that market analysis, robust supply chains, and price discounts are critical for ICS diffusion. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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