[Stoves] Stove costs

[Tom Miles Easystreet]

T R Miles Technical Consultants Inc. 503-780-8185
tmiles at trmiles.com
Sent from mobile. 

On Nov 20, 2011, at 12:57 PM, "Cecil Cook" <cec1863 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Crispin and Jan,
>  
> Here are three partial unpublished reports and one aggregate table that I put together for GTZ as a valiant effort by an anthropologist to to turn a small sample of face to face interviews into a meaningfully differentiated model of the charcoal stove economy of Lusaka.  
>  
> Maybe it will illuminate some of the proverbial and continuing difficulties encountered by 'expensive' improved stoves to gain and hold on to a significant share of a local stove market that is dominated by crappy but very low cost stoves made by artisans.  
>  
> The TV and cell phone examples given by Crispin do not 'ring' completely true for the bottom 2/3rds of the Lusaka charcoal stove market because there poor people buy the best lowest cost phones and TV's that are on the market.   So the principle is the same: poor people purchase the lowest cost stove technology on the market. Yes, it is possible for them by heroic feats of self denial to save enough money to purchase a $25 to $50 cell phone or even a more expensive TV, but if there was a cell phone or a TV on the market that cost less and still functioned adequately they would surely buy the lowest cost technology that gets the job done.  
>  
> What I discovered and tried to establish in this study was that low income people who live and die according to how well they manage their daily cash flows can as a rule only manage to save about 20% of their daily cash flow over a 7 day period so the amount of money a household can save in a week pretty determines the upper limit of how much they are willing/able to spend to buy the least expensive functional charcoal stove on the market.  
>  
> In search,
>  
> Cecil Cook
> TechnoShare (SA)  
> 
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 11:55 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Jan
> 
> 
> 
> I am picking up on the past comment you made: "For people living on $2 a day
> or less, what for example would be considered a low cost stove?  Middling?
> High?"
> 
> 
> 
> I am copying this to Cecil Cook who is a social anthropologist specializing
> in stoves and their use. You can contact him directly if he does not respond
> to this group (to which he is not subscribed).
> 
> 
> 
> The $2 per day person is usually not someone living on a total income of $2
> per day as a salary from which they must pay for everything. Yes there are
> such people, however that is not really representative of total income or
> one could say, value of all income including in-kind receipts.  For example
> fuel collected free from the environment without expense has a value and
> from a marketing point of view, an opportunity cost.
> 
> 
> 
> With that in mind, one can more easily understand how people with "$2 per
> day" income have cell phones and TV's. There are a number of ways you could
> slice it: disposable income, extended family total income including
> environmental contributions and so on.
> 
> 
> 
> Cecil has found that the maximum amount a stove can cost, i.e. to be bought
> at all by anyone in the target group, is dependent on cultural
> considerations. A way to think about it is like this: how much money will
> accumulate in the pocket of a person 'saving for a stove' (or other major
> purchase) before it 'grows holes' and leaks out? I will give his example of
> Lusaka where the amount is 10 day's income. No one in the main target
> population saves more than 10 day's income before something else starts
> eating it. It may be a relative's school fees, needed clothing and so on.
> Anything. That is the upper limit of a practical stove's cost.
> 
> 
> 
> The upper limit for a voluntary purchase near the 'usual cost' is also
> important. Asking people not how much they are willing to pay for 'anything'
> max, but how much they are willing to pay for a stove will generate a
> different answer. If it saves fuel and cooks as well and has less smoke and
> (especially) lights quickly and cleanly, people will usually say they will
> pay more than the standard product. In the case of Lusaka, the standard
> stove goes for about $1.50. An improved stove that will save fuel can sell
> for $2.50 to $3.00. Stoves that cost more than that will sell poorly because
> it is above the tolerance range for 'stoves' even though it is well under
> the maximum they could save.
> 
> 
> 
> If a stove has wonderful features so attractive that people will pay
> 'anything to get one', it will bump into the upper limit of what most people
> can save before it starts leaking out of the pocket.
> 
> 
> 
> For many years stoves costing $10 to $15 have failed to thrive in Lusaka.
> That is below the 10 limit but far above the $2.50 limit. In a different
> culture, with a different fuel price (fuel in Lusaka is pretty cheap) with a
> different pay method/cycle there will be different numbers involved but the
> same principles.
> 
> 
> 
> You may find his discoveries helpful when analyzing your cost-benefit
> scenarios.
> 
> 
> 
> Regards
> 
> Crispin
> 
> 
> 
>  
> <% Distribution of Urban HH Incomes in Deciles (K $).pdf>
> <Brief History of Donor Funded Programmes to Innovate and Institutionalize Improved Charcoal Stoves.pdf>
> <Executive summary.pdf>
> <The Charcoal Stove Market - economics of mbaulas (re-edited 10-3-09).pdf>
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