Alternative Energy Promotion Centre/Energy Sector Assistance Programme (AEPC/ESAP)

Mission

Making renewable energy a mainstream resource through increased access, knowledge and adaptation contributing to improved living conditions of people in Nepal.

Improvement of the living conditions of the rural population by easing its access to energy technologies with better performance in terms of productivity, use versatility and environmental impacts.

At the Annual Consultations between Government of Nepal (HMG/N) and the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark (GKD) in May 1996 it was agreed to establish an Energy Sector Assistance Programme (ESAP) to be financed by DANIDA. DANIDA and HMG/N approved the Programme Document, and a DKK 154 million agreement between GoN and GKD for DANIDA support to ESAP Phase I was signed on 26 March 1999. The ESAP consisted of five components for the initial five year phase. One of the components is Promotion of Improved Cooking Stoves, aimed at building community, district, and national level capacity to promote and disseminate improved cooking stoves (ICS).

More than 396,000 stoves have been disseminated in 45 mid hill districts. This component has been successful at achieving its predefined objective and meeting targets of disseminating quality ICS, information awareness, and networking in targeted area. The effort made by AEPC/ESAP's ICS component is still important and relevant for more than 1.5 million potential households in the mid-hills who are not yet equipped with ICS. A good deal of useful experience has been gained and ESAP is in a position to scale-up ICS dissemination. ICS Component in Phase-2, renamed Biomass Energy Support Programme, is designed to include all major biomass energy technologies as solutions to rural energy problems.

The biomass energy component in ESAP - Phase II will expedite mass dissemination of improved cooking stoves in Mid -Hills, High Mountains and Terai along with initiatives taken to introduce and promote other biomass technologies for optimized technical and social uses of biomass resource. Specifically the objectives are:

Improving the capacity of local organizations to offer affordable biomass energy (BE) solutions to the rural communities with quality assurance
Addressing gender, health, environment and socio-economic issues, including reduction of women and children's drudgery through implementation of biomass energy solutions
Popularizing biomass energy solutions in rural communities

The physically verifiable component targets, in addition to capacity building, information awareness, environmental and health benefits and policy, etc. for phase II (2007-2011) are:

434,000 Improved Cooking Stoves installed in Mid Hills and Terai
10,000 household gassifiers disseminated through commercial market
1000 Institutional gassifiers disseminated on economic basis
5,000 Institutional improved cooking stoves installed as demonstration
50,000 stoves in high hill installed

The biomass component also includes measurements of indoor air pollution, including a comparative of ICS user and non user houses.

Organization Type

Government

Contact Information

Primary Contact	Ms. Karuna Bajracharya karuna.bajracharya@aepc.gov.np	Secondary Contact	Mr. Narayan Adhikari,
Address	PO Box 6332 (GPO Kathmandu) Khumaltar height, Lalitpur, Lalitpur N/A Nepal	Website	www.aepc.gov.np
		Phone	977-1-5539390
		Fax	977-1-5539392
		Calling/Fax Instructions	Second phone:

Our Focus

Primary Initiatives, Target Populations, and Scope of Work:
The target population of the component are; Rural population for scaling up ICS programme and Private sector development for commercialization of Biomass technologies.
Fuels/Technologies:	Biomass	Sectors of Experience:	Renewable Energy Rural Development	Countries of Operation:	Nepal

Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas

Social/Cultural barriers to using traditional fuels and stoves:

The Improved cooking stove programmes major marketing point is health benefits. So, efforts on information and awareness campain on health/indoor air pollution has been integral part of the component. By using this tool the component has been able to over come social/cultural barriers to a large extent.

Market development for improved cooking technologies:

One of the key strategy of the programme is no direct subsidy to end users. The users have to pay stove installers/promoter to get stoves. The programme has put its effort on capacity building of stakeholders, Promoters, information and awareness programmes and partnership with local district based organisation and local government. The progarmme will further strengthen on private sector development and quality assurance by doing company pre-qualification and monitoring.

Technology standardization for cooking, heating and ventilation:

Up till now the programme has been disseminating seven models of stove suitable for mid hills population. these stove designs are made of local available materials; i.e. clay, brick and some iron bars for reinforcement. Special emphasis has been given on capacity building and technical backstopping to the promoters and their after sales service to end users. Kitchen management aspect is incorporated in awareness campaigns and capacity building programme.

for disseminating metal stove in high altitude area government has allocated subsidy worth Rs. 4000 Nepalese rupees. For this purpose we have standardized the technology. the minimum efficiency needs to be 25% and with three pothole and addition water tank and suitable for space heading and cooking purpose.

Indoor air pollution exposure and health monitoring:

All 3960,000 stove disseminated from programme is improved cooking stoves with chimney. the reduction in pollution level has been recorded as reduced by 62% CO and 60% pm 2.5 in the recent study of before and after stove installation.

Relevant Publications or Studies

aepc e-news letters

Our Contribution to the Partnership

The programme has conducted many studies by using external consultants i.e. Rapid sample surveys, Impact study on programme effectiveness, Technical quality monitoring of stoves in sample districts and areas. It has also developed the standards and guideline for implementation of improved cooking stove programme and pictorieal manual, and users manual in local languages. Hence, we would be more than happy to share these documents and any document related to household energy matters that we are doing.