Envirofit

Each year close to 4 million people die prematurely from illnesses attributable to household air pollution caused by cooking in open fires and inefficient stoves that use solid fuels like wood, crop wastes, charcoal, coal and dung. These cooking practices also contribute to outdoor air pollution and climate change. Almost 3 billion people still cook using solid fuels. Moving to cleaner energy sources, like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), can help solve these problems.

Envirofit is working to make cleaner household energy technologies more affordable and accessible for people living in extreme energy poverty. Its goal is to improve harmful cooking practices by providing improved cooking technology and fuels tailored to the needs of people in emerging and developing markets. One way it is doing this is by reducing access and affordability barriers to LPG.

In 2018 Envirofit designed and piloted a new SmartGas™ service in 300 households in Kenya and Ghana, that employs mobile and internet of things (IoT) technology to enable customers to Pay-As-You-Cook. After five months of using the service, 97% of the families expressed a desire to continue using the product post-pilot, reporting it was convenient, saved money, saved time, and was safe to use. These numbers indicate that if given the option to use clean burning LPG fuel, customer adoption would be high.

Following the successful pilot Envirofit is scaling up the service to help 5,000 households by the end of 2018 and 20,000 households by the end of 2019. By reaching 5,000 households Envirofit will reduce the equivalent of 18,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) by the end of 2018.  

By switching to SmartGas™ current LPG users (which made up 25% of the pilot) can reduce 3 tons of CO₂ emissions per year by increasing their LPG consumption to 100%. Fuel Stackers (which made up 60% of the pilot) can reduce 10 tons of CO₂ emissions per year by increasing their LPG consumption by 50% and exclusive charcoal users can reduce 15 tons of CO₂ emissions per year by increasing their LPG consumption by 50%.

Helping people move toward LPG fuels would also help achieve Sustainable Development Goals #7, which is to “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.”