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Background and Context

Alternative Energy for Indoor Air Quality Improvement Practice in Rural Mountainous Communities of China’s Yunnan Province. Background and Context.

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Background and Context

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  1. Alternative Energy for Indoor Air Quality ImprovementPractice in Rural Mountainous Communities of China’s Yunnan Province

  2. Background and Context • The Nature Conservancy – a biodiversity conservation non-profit organization, pursuing for balanced efforts for conservation and community development • Northwest corner of China’s Yunnan Province is the headwaters area for Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, and Irrawaddy • Unique geographical features make it 1 of 10 biodiversity hotspots worldwide; Ecological conservation impacts 500 million people downstream (primarily Yangtze valley) • 13 out of 15 counties below the national poverty line; balanced conservation and development efforts in bad need • Rely on firewood for cooking and room heating; firewood collection imposes threat on forest ecosystem • Serious indoor air pollution due to wood burning in open fire; results in health problems East Himalayas TNC Yunnan Project Area

  3. Wood Burning and Indoor Air Pollution • Wood burns in open fire at many rural households and community schools • Chinese government has addressed this challenge through the National Improved Cookstove Program that resulted in disseminating an estimated 200 million energy efficient cookstoves – but serious challenges remain in remote mountainous areas • Exposure to indoor smoke from cooking and heating with traditional solid fuels results in an estimated 1.6 million premature deaths each year, largely among women and children – including an estimated 430,000 people in China • TNC initiated an alternative energy program in 2001, aiming to protect the biologically sensitive forests and the rich biodiversity in northwest Yunnan, and to employ alternative energy as a strategy to minimize the adverse ecological and health consequences and effects of firewood use • The objective of the project is to demonstrate effective approaches for implementing home cooking and heating projects that increase the use of affordable, reliable, clean, efficient, and safe home cooking and heating practices

  4. Alternative Energy Project Approach • Firewood use audit to better understand the problems (energy use patterns, firewood use efficiency, improvement potential, social practice, etc) • Renewable energy assessment (availability of renewable energy resources, barriers to renewable energy applications, etc) • Awareness building (experiment, pilot, demonstration, training workshops, etc) • Project dissemination and scale up (technical support and partial financial grant, microfinance in support of alternative energy installations and income generation activities) • Partnership and leverage (co-finance from government, working with communities, support enterprises, etc) • Outreach (training workshops, seminars, policy recommendations, etc)

  5. Project Implementation • Efficiency improvement (wood-burning stoves, open fire) • Renewable energy development (biogas digesters, solar water heaters, micro-hydropower generators, etc) • Integrating energy solution with income generation activities (Green Village Credit projects) • Demand side approach (energy efficient housing, air circulation regulation, etc) • Integrating technical solution with enhanced policy regulations and enforcement (government policy, villagers’ agreements)

  6. Fuel Efficiency Improvement • Wood for cooking and heating • Onsite construction (combustion chamber, chimney, insulation, tailored to cooking in large quantity) • Commercial multiple function stoves (better quality control, movable, simultaneous, etc) • Room heating tripod open fire (social customs, non-technical factors, chimneyless)

  7. Renewable Energy Development • Biogas digesters (household scale, management and maintenance, feedstock, fertilizer, sanitary benefit) • Solar water heaters (household use, lodge application, animal fodder preparation, shower room, kitchen use, etc) • Micro hydropower generator (lighting, rice cooking, function of open fire in lighting)

  8. 67% Reduction 71% Reduction Alternative Energy Application and Indoor Air Quality • Indoor air quality monitoring to assess effectiveness of alternative energy use on improvement of indoor air quality • Indicators (CO and PM2.5) • Field monitoring Sample size - 30 households; summer and winter Equipment – Dust track, UCB PM monitor; HOBO- CO monitor • Preliminary findings Reference standard: PM2.5 65 m/m3; CO 9 PPM or 10 m/m3;

  9. Project Outputs Summary • Beneficiaries • Over 10,000 installations (improved stoves, biogas units, solar water heaters, micro hydropower generators, etc) • More than 7,000 households • 320 remote rural communities • 80 school demonstration projects • Preliminary Impacts • Reduced firewood consumption (25-80%) • Improved indoor air quality (CO down by 70-88%; PM2.5 48-92% lower) • Saving labour and efforts in firewood collection and cooking

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