[Stoves] cost of stoves

[adkarve]

Dear stovers,
Our Institute participated in an agricultural exhibition held recently in our city. About 100,000 visitors visited the exhibition within a span of about 5 days, and at least 10,000 found their way to our stall. We had displayed various cookstoves, ranging in price from about US$5 to US$200. The range included our own Sarai cooker, charcoal making stove, sawdust stove, Paul Anderson's Champion stove, our own pyrolysis gas stove, Philips fan stove, and our biogas unit. The maximum demand was for Philips stove, which was only kept there for display and was not for sale. However people could see that it used only wood as fuel and that it did not produce any smoke or soot.  We asked people how much they would be willing to pay for Phillips stove. The offers ranged from US$30 to 55. The prospective customers were villagers, who did not have access to bottled gas. US$ 55 is roughly the down payment that one has to make to get bottled gas. It includes the price of the LPG stove, the security deposit for one LPG cylinder and the price of one cylinder load of LPG.  This exercise shows that there is good demand for biomass burning stoves, if they guaranteed a clean burn without smoke and soot. High price is not a deterrent.
Yours
A.D.Karve