Kindling the biomass flame

During the recession in 2008, Nashik-based metal fabrication firm Swami Samarth Enterprises found itself in the doldrums. Its order book shrank with its revenues, down from ₹50 lakh a month to ₹3 lakh. Just as hope was dying out for the firm, a customer approached the owner, Soumitra Kulkarni, with an order for 100 coal-based stoves. He paid an advance of ₹10,000, but didn’t come back to collect the manufactured stoves.

Weeks later, when Kulkarni tracked him down, the customer said he was not interested in buying the product as he had changed his field of work. Due to their poor design and lack of safety features, the stoves had to be scrapped. The painful episode however ended up giving Kulkarni his next big idea amidst the dwindling industrial demand — the manufacture of biomass stoves for households that were wasting fuel and time cooking on mud chulhas .

Obviously his customer didn’t realise the potential inherent in the stoves he had scrapped. “I took his permission and invested in R&D to refine the stoves. I was looking to make and sell products that could bring in revenues immediately. Biomass stoves fit the bill,” says Kulkarni.

Biomass stoves too use wood, charcoal, animal dung or crop residue as fuel, but are scientifically designed to reduce smoke by up to 70 per cent, fuel use by 60 per cent and cooking time by half. Most importantly, they reduce the indoor air pollution caused by cooking fire, which causes over a million deaths globally each year.

By May that year, Kulkarni was ready with about 5,000 biomass cookstoves, which sold out over the next four months. Having found his calling, Kulkarni continued to invest in refining the stoves to make them more fuel-efficient, smokeless and eco-friendly.

Miles away in Auroville, the City of Dawn near Puducherry, a group of engineers, designers, a physicist and marketing professionals spend days refining the design and efficiency of biomass stoves. “We also have on staff full-time cooks from local villages — the absolute stove-design experts. Every day, they prepare lunch using our stove prototypes and help us refine them,” says Mouhsine Serrar, founder of Prakti Designs — the largest supplier of biomass stoves to the UN World Food Programme.

As for Neha Juneja and Ankit Mathur, a different kind of smoke trail led them to biomass cookstoves. After graduating from the Faculty of Management Studies in Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad, respectively, the duo ventured into energy finance, which led them to undertake solar, hydro and biomass energy projects in rural areas. Although the finance venture did not succeed eventually, it helped them uncover the potential in biomass stoves and they set up Greenway Appliances, which operates the country’s largest biomass cookstove manufacturing plant in Vadodara, Gujarat.

The stoves manufactured by Greenway, Prakti and Kulkarni’s Swami Samarth are not only portable and easy to use, they are also suited for traditional utensils and cooking methods. According to the 2011 Census, over 61 per cent of rural households use firewood as cooking fuel, leading to deforestation as well as health problems for women and children.

“The difference between a modern biomass stove and a traditional chulha is in the design, engineering, and material. The purpose is to allow optimal combustion (reduce emission), minimal fuel consumption (efficient heat transfer), faster cooking, and durability at minimal cost without compromising usability and cultural preferences,” says Serrar.

Some of these companies have secured patents for their cookstove design and others have applied for them. Greenway stoves provide complete combustion by deploying a patent-pending air induction mechanism. The air-fuel ratio ensures good combustion unlike in mud stoves, which demand the use of ventilating pipes and don’t burn efficiently.

Raghunath Funde, a farmer in Bela village of Maharashtra’s Bhandara district, says the biggest advantage in using the Greenway stove is that his wife and mother don’t have to sit beside it to adjust the wood or blow air. “The wood is fully burnt, there is no smoke and the cooking time is much less. My mother’s health is now improving. She earlier had a lot of respiratory problems,” he says. After using the biomass stove for about seven months, he has recommended it to his friends and extended family. The stoves are priced between ₹1,100 and ₹1,500. Greenway’s Smart stove for homes is priced ₹1,499 and the Jumbo stove for commercial use is priced ₹2,499. Agneeka, Swami Samarth’s cookstove brand, is priced similarly and offers discounts of up to ₹400 to needy families.

The sales have increased steadily. Prakti has sold 15,000 household stoves and nearly 900 institutional stoves (that can cook for up to 500 people per meal) in the last two years. Juneja and Mathur began with selling 100 stoves in the first month. Today, they sell 40,000 units every month and their factory can manufacture eight lakh units annually.

“Given the market size, the value proposition of the product is very strong,” says Juneja.

Serrar says Prakti has been constantly improvising its stoves over the last few years. “We are on track to release a new stove version every year with better performance and 30 per cent cost reduction,” he says.

A major challenge for all of them lies in reaching out to the end-users and convincing them to buy. Kulkarni says there is still little awareness about the availability of biomass stoves and their benefits.

“People are not ready yet to switch over from age-old mud chulhas . We explain the health benefits of using biomass cookstoves and then try to convert them. It will take time,” he says.

Juneja agrees that affordability is not as much an issue as lack of awareness is. This is precisely why Prakti is roping in local communities and cooks in the design of the stoves, to enable them to identify with the product. “Our stoves are distributed and assembled through local partners. As local distribution and marketing mature, we transfer production to the local partners,” he says. Prakti stoves are currently made at its factory in Chennai, allowing for continuous rapid prototyping and mass customisation.

For distribution, too, the manufacturers are banking on innovation to reach out to a large number of people. Greenway has partnered with banks, including Canara Bank and Bank of India, to finance the stoves. Instead of paying ₹1,499 upfront, customers can pay in installments. There are also tie-ups with microfinance institutions to take the stoves to families in rural as well as urban areas.

Greenway has additionally tapped small retail outlets in the central market at the taluka level, which customers visit at least twice a month. Prakti’s Serrar is stocking the products at all outlets where solar lights are sold to villages. He is also relying on sales tie-ups with distributors specialising in rural areas, including Dharma Life. “We have realised that product development calls for a lot of effort and distribution requires a different set of skills. We get optimal synergy by separating product development and distribution,” he says.

The appeal of biomass stoves is unsurprisingly not limited to rural households. It is equally popular with many urban families without an Aadhar card or bank account for LPG subsidy. Even households with an LPG connection are using the stove to heat water in the winter months or in cooking to achieve a smoky flavour. A major segment, however, are the institutional users — school canteens, caterers and restaurants. Kulkarni sells his commercial biomass stoves, each above 50kg, only to the Pune-based alternative energy company First Energy.

Continuous R&D is helping develop newer versions of the biomass stove — double pot cookstoves, charcoal cookstoves, wood cookstoves, and institutional stoves of varying capacities — to reach out to more customers. Prakti is already selling in some African countries and Nepal, besides India. Greenway has started exporting to Mexico — 1,500 units per month — and is now looking at East Africa and South Africa. It has seven warehouses across India and expects to double the number next year. “We want to make this the de-facto standard of cooking in India,” says Juneja. Given the investment and efforts kindling it, this is one mission that promises to burn bright.

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