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Newsletter Issue 26 : August 1, 2009- August 31, 2009

Plant Oil Stove

Figures indicate that nearly 625 million in India have no access to modern cooking fuels. Modern cooking fuels refer to kerosene, LPG, natural gas and electricity. Traditional fuels such as wood, crop residues, and animal dung still provide for 80-90% of the fuel needs of rural India. Modern fuels are not affordable for rural India for reasons like high cost, lack of distribution systems, etc. Even though kerosene is subsidized at Rs.9/ litre and distributed through the Public Distribution System, supply is limited and does not meet the actual needs of a house-hold.

With a growing population and depleting fossil based fuels, plant oil based fuels hold the future. Middle and upper class households move up the energy value chain to kerosene, LPG, natural piped gas and electricity respectively. The poorer classes remain at the bottom with traditional fuels. Hence any alternate source of energy at an affordable cost would certainly help the poor.

The innovation is a stove for cooking purposes that utilizes plant-based oils as fuel. This design, as different from the conventional stove, has a vaporizer with intricate nozzles, where the plant oil is pre-heated before it enters the combustion zone of the burner. The stove has two parts: a compartmentalized container, which stores plant oil in one compartment and kerosene in another, vaporizer with pre-heating mechanism and burner. Kerosene is burnt for some minutes and the flame heats the vaporizer. The flow of kerosene is stopped and that of plant oil is started. As the plant oil enters the pre-heating zone, it vaporizes. The pre-heated oil comes out of intricate nozzles into the burner, where it burns through a flame holder.

This innovation has been developed by Sri. P.Mukundan, Managing Director of Servals Automation Pvt Ltd. This company is currently engaged in the marketing of an innovative energy efficient kerosene stove “burner”.