Background:
For countries which have cold climate and long heating season, access to reliable and efficient heat supply is critical for the well-being of the population. However, in developing countries, majority of rural and peri-urban households do not have access to centralized heating or gas networks and use traditional heating stoves and rely on traditional solid fuels (i.e. coal, wood, and dung) for heating. These traditional heating stoves are often inefficient (with thermal efficiency as low as 25%-40% compared to efficient stoves of 70% or above) and polluting, which contribute to energy poverty, indoor and outdoor pollutions, and associated negative impacts on heath.
The World Bank is currently working with client countries to promote clean and efficient heating solutions through the following ongoing operations and pilots:
- China: Hebei Air Pollution Prevention Program for Results (P4R) project, effective in 2016, includes an $80 million clean stoves component.
- Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar Clean Air project, effective in 2012, includes a stove switching program with $15 million IDA financing.
- Kyrgyzstan: Heat Supply Improvement project which is expected to be approved in 2017 includes an efficient and clean heating component with $5 million IDA financing. The component is designed based on a pilot program implemented during the 2016/2017 heating season.
- Tajikistan: As part of the Winter Energy Program, a pilot efficient heating stove program has been implemented during the 2016/2017 heating season.
Although each country has its own country-specific characteristics, they often face similar institutional, technical, and financial challenges in the sector. Learning and exchanging knowledge and experience from each other will be an effective way to design, implement, or adjust the intervention strategies. Supported by the funding from the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), the World Bank will organize a clean and efficient heating S-S knowledge exchange event to bring these client countries together to facilitate knowledge exchange and collaboration. As China has the largest clean stoves industry in the world, has implemented various government supported clean stove programs, and organizes an annual Clean Stove Expo which brings hundreds of manufactures to showcase their products, the S-S knowledge exchange event plans to be organized in conjunction with China’s 11th Clean Stove Expo which is scheduled during April 17-19 in Lang Fang, Hebei Province.