Successful kick-off workshop for Advanced Clean Cookstove project in Vietnam
A kick-off workshop for clean cookstove producers was held from 7-8 April 2016 in Hanoi, Vietnam as part of the Advanced Clean Cookstove (ACCS) project. The workshop set in motion the set-up of a national alliance for advanced clean cookstove producers in Vietnam
The ACCS project is funded by the Energising Development (EnDev), the Blue Moon Fund and managed by SNV Vietnam. It employs an innovative approach to accelerating the market development for advanced clean cookstoves in the country. Attended by 11 advanced clean cookstove production companies, the event aimed to familiarise producers with project procedures and regulations, the optimal design of advanced cookstoves, engineering criteria and the internationally recognised testing protocols.
This was the first occasion where all the producers of clean cookstoves in Vietnam got together. “It was very useful”, says Mr. Nguyen Tuan Anh from the Green Generation company, a producer of advanced clean cookstoves. “The workshop created a very friendly and cooperative atmosphere among producers. During the workshop companies agreed on setting up a national alliance for advanced clean cookstove producers in Vietnam. Even though several participants already had a dream of setting up such an alliance, it would probably not have taken place without this workshop.”
The ACCS project will operate in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam where over 65 million people still cook on traditional biomass stoves that negatively impact health and cause forest degradation. In Vietnam alone indoor air pollution causes 45,000 deaths annually. The emissions can drastically be reduced by the use of advanced biomass stoves known as gasifiers. The ACCS project aims to increase access to and availability of advanced clean cookstoves to households, while increasing the capacity of local producers to produce ACCS in Vietnam.
“I realise that many problems are caused by the use of traditional biomass”, said Mr. Bui Viet Trung from CCMB, a Vietnamese state-owned enterprise that produces ACCS. “I am very interested in joining the project because it stimulates the use of advanced clean cookstoves and gives me access to a broader market.”
The unique aspect of this project is that it provides results-based finance (RBF) incentives to producers instead of investment subsidies to households. Results-based finance means that the producer will only receive the incentive after a third party has verified that they have achieved the predefined objective of selling an advanced clean cookstove to a household. The project will organise weekly RBF incentive option auctions in which bidders will compete to obtain the RBF incentive options. The bidder who offers the lowest price per RBF incentive will be awarded the whole batch of RBF options. After earning the RBF incentive options, the producers will be able to claim RBF incentives once they successfully sold the ACCS to an end user. This innovative scheme will result in an optimal allocation of donor resources while ensuring a level playing field for the producers.
Mr. Bui Viet Trung says that the project enables him to sell his stoves at a lower price. He believes that once consumers have experienced the benefits of ACCS, local demand may increase along with the willingness to pay the market price.
The efficiency and emissions of the stoves, along with fuel savings in the field, are being tested and the actual RBF incentive option auction is planned to start in July 2016.