Mobile phones can now help rural women switch over to using clean cooking technologies, weaning them away from traditional smoky chullahs.
Teri, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Nexleaf Analytics and Qualcomm Wireless Reach have come together to develop SootSwap, a mobile application to monitor and incentivise women to use healthier cooking methodologies.
This innovative technology falls under the nomenclature of Teri’s Project Surya’s Climate Credit Pilot Project (C2P2) and allows families to earn money selling carbon credits on the carbon market.
Explaining how it works, Ibrahim Rehman, director, social transformation division of Teri, said, “Indian at present has 600 million people using biomass for cooking purposes. Sootswap incentivises families to switch over to clean cooking stoves made out of stainless steel, costing between `3,000-5,000 per piece, as these will help reduce their carbon footprint.”
“With registered carbon credit programs providing financial incentives for reducing carbon emissions through the use of clean cookstoves, families can earn money selling carbon credits on the carbon market. Part of their EMI can be offset from these earnings,” Mr Rehman explained.
The stove is connected to a phone-based temperature-sensing application and a thermal sensor. The temperature data is uploaded via wireless from the cellphone to a server where it is analysed to indicate the number of times the stove is used and the duration of each use.
Mr Rehman said, “This will make the data available to carbon market investors as proof of reduction in carbon emissions.”
Tests show that while the traditional chullah possesses an energy efficiency of as little as 20 per cent, Teri stove is an improvement with an efficiency of 45 per cent.
Sootswap was tested during the least three years through a pilot project in 100 rural homes in villages around Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh. It will now be extended to 2,000 homes in Varanasi district and in Bihar.
Dr Nitya Ramanathan of Nexleaf pointed out that it was her company which applied its field-tested sensors and engineering data measurement tools to advance the capability of an ordinary mobile phone.
The Global Burden of Disease Study, 2010, estimated that four million die each year as a result of inhaling the smoke produced by cooking over open fires.