InStove Opens First Nigerian Stove Factory
Afikpo, Nigeria– In July 2013, Institutional Stove Solutions (InStove) opened a “Stove-Factory-in-a Box” in Afikpo, Nigeria in conjunction with our Nigerian production partner, the International Center for Environment and Energy Development (ICEED). InStove’s mission is to relieve suffering, improve health, enhance safety and reduce adverse impacts on the environment through the design and delivery of highly efficient biomass stoves and allied technologies to vulnerable populations worldwide.
The program model generally has three steps:
- Conducting a pilot project to gauge interest in stoves;
- Analyzing markets to gauge demand; and
- Establishing an in-country factory – with the active participation of local partners – to lower production and shipping costs. This is a market-based, sustainable method, and Nigeria is our first test of this model. We are the first organization of our kind to succeed in establishing a major production facility for manufacturing advanced biomass cookstoves in sub-Saharan Africa.
The first run of 430 60-liter Stoves began rolling off InStove’s first African production line in early July. All of the stoves in this run have been pre-sold to school meal programs across Nigeria. InStove is in negotiations to bring similar factories to Uganda, Kenya and Senegal, and taking preliminary steps in Haiti, Zambia, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
These factories will generate ongoing business for Oregon vendors, since they will be supplied by “stove-kits”—materials primarily sold by Oregon vendors and shipped from InStove’s Cottage Grove facility.
InStove founded in 2012, is dedicated to relieving suffering, improving health, and reducing harm to the environment through the design and delivery of highly efficient biomass stoves. It completed its first fiscal year on June 30th, and now has stoves in more than 20 countries worldwide, including 13 African countries, Haiti and East Timor. Other solutions the company is working on include a high-capacity water-pasteurizer, and an alternative stove-fuel press that can make stove fuel to replace wood out of any available, cellulose-based biomass (e.g., crop waste, paper, sawdust).
Contact information:
Adam Creighton. Development Coordinator, Institutional Stove Solutions,
adam@instove.org, (+1) 541-515-1330
www.instove.org