Scaling housing interventions for wood-burning stoves worldwide

The wood-burning stove is the most popular energy technology in the world since about 3 billion people rely on it for both domestic cooking and heating purposes. It is estimated that in 2030 more than 200 million people will be affected by this abundant energy source. Large-scale clean stove programs have been being implemented worldwide, but still there is a lack of innovations targeting its efficient carbon retrofitting into the built environment. This research aims to catalog the most common wood-burning stove designs used in both developed and developing countries, scaling the existent levels of complexity concerning stove integration in distinct building envelopes. A representative calculation of the environmental performance of improved stoves was carried out in order to compare the carbon reduction potential in developing and developed regions, considering representative conditions in single families of south-America and Europe, based on the heat demands, consumption and the carbon emissions for both scenarios of user’s best and usual practices in the domestic wood combustion. In South-America, the recent implementation of a new low cost efficient masonry stove saves in about 40% the energy consumption under the best operating practices in traditional households. However, under the daily use of stoves considerable amount of carbon emissions were identified. In Nordic countries, a new expensive cast iron stove (from 2012) reduces in 50% the biomass consumption through the automatic control of wood combustion in efficient houses. In both cases, carbon emissions can be reduced by lowering or improving the interaction of the users with the stove combustion chamber. This calculation model will be able to show what technology upgrades can be performed to reduce the global carbon emissions in households not only in developed but also in developing countries where there is the major potential to reduce the buildings carbon footprint by improving indoor climate.