Glossary - GIZ HERA Cooking Energy Compendium

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Agro-energy: Energy produced from agricultural crops and/or by-products, waste and dung.

Baseline: describes the situation prior to the development intervention

Bioenergy: Energy derived from all types of biomass, including wood energy and agro-energy.

Bioethanol: ethanol produced from sugar-rich plants (such as sugar cane, maize) or starch by fermentation. It has been promoted as an additive vehicle fuel and as a cooking fuel using ethanol stoves.

Biofuel: any fuel produced from biomass.

Biogas: gas produced by breaking down agricultural waste, animal dung and human faeces with bacteria in the absence of air. It consists mainly of methane and is a very clean household fuel.

Biomass: living or dead organic matter, such as trees, grasses, crops and dung. It is a renewable source of energy, if used in a sustainable manner. This is in contrast to fossil fuels, which are always non-sustainable as once used, they are not replaced.

Briquette: a sizeable ‘chunk’ of densified product of any shape and compaction level where the smallest side-length is above 2 cm size
Buy down grant: a type of direct subsidy which reduces the product price directly

Carbonization- the conversion of an organic substance into carbon or a carbon-containing residue through pyrolysis or destructive distillation
CDM: the Clean Development Mechanism, instigated by the Kyoto Protocol. Emission reduction credits can be an additional source of funding for household energy projects.

Coppice- is a traditional method of woodland management which takes advantage of the fact that many trees make new growth from the stump or roots if cut down
CER/ VER: Certified Emission Reduction and Voluntary Emission Reduction. Tools developed within the Clean Development Mechanism. Projects, which have passed a registration process, can become clean development projects. They can apply for financing, selling CERs to partners in developed countries. Each CER represents the abatement of the equivalent of one tonne of carbon dioxide being emitted.

Cookstove, Improved: energy-efficient stoves for households, institutions and small enterprises. They reduce fuel consumption between 40 % for charcoal stoves and up to 90 % for large institutional stoves compared to traditional stoves and the three-stone-fires, respectively.

Cooking energy: energy used for cooking and baking.

Decentralized energy: energy production at or near the point of use
Design drift: design (e.g. of stove) that is gradually modified into obsolescence. For example, once the engineer is gone, the local builder may widen the stove’s mouth so it can burn larger sticks

End user: person who uses a product; the consumer
End user devices: device developed for the consumer (e.g. cook stoves), 

Energy crop: plants grown for energy production.

Energy ladder concept-  idea that with increasing wealth, households linearly ‘progress’ from stickwood to charcoal, kerosene, LPG and finally to electricity. This concept is now a bit outdated. The alternative fuel-stacking model is more appropriate: as households become more affluent, they diversify their energy sources while continuing to use firewood and charcoal. 

Fallow- Land left unseeded during a growing season
Feedstock- refer to the crops or products, like waste vegetable oil, that can be used as or converted into biofuels and bioenergy
Flash point- an indication of how easy a chemical may burn. The flashpoint of a chemical is the lowest temperature where it will evaporate enough fluid to form a combustible concentration of gas.
Fossil fuel: a non-renewable source of energy, which was produced from the remains of animals and plants millions of years ago. Examples are coal, oil, peat and natural gas.

Fuel switching: changing to a different fuel, frequently from wood to charcoal, biogas or liquefied petrol gas.

Fuelwood: wood used for energy generation.

Fuelwood gap: consumption of fuelwood larger than the sustainable supply
GIS: Geographic Information System, a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data
Household energy: energy consumed by individual households (institutions and small scale enterprises) for cooking, space heating and cooling, lighting, and other household tasks.

IAP- Indoor air pollution
Inception study- baseline study (see above) Indirect subsidies- refer to subsidies that reduce the price to the consumer, but not through a direct cash transfer
Lignin- a substance related to cellulose that occurs in the woody cell walls of plants and in the cementing material between them
Microfinance- the provision of financial services to poor or low-income clients for productive purposes or for buying goods or services. It includes micro-credit, savings, insurance and fund transfers.
Out-grower scheme- a contractual partnership between growers or landholders and a company for the production of commercial forest products
Paraffin- a waxy crystalline flammable substance obtained especially from distillates of wood, coal, petroleum, or shale oil
Phenology- the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate
Pyrolysis- heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen, the process used to make charcoal.

Rocket stove: an improved cookstove using ‘rocket’ principles. These include an elbow-shaped insulated combustion chamber, tall vertical walls (hence ‘rocket’), air inlet below the fuel, and other elements to make the stove burn more cleanly and efficiently.

Scaling-up: changing the scale of production of energy-efficient technologies to achieve mass production and dissemination.

Scoping- developing the framework of the inception study
Silviculture- the practice of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests to meet diverse needs and values
Soft loan: a type of loan with extended grace periods in which only interest or service charges are due. They also offer longer amortization schedules and lower interest rates than conventional bank loans' Subsidy (direct): typically involve a direct cash transfer to the stove producer or consumer

Subsidy (indirect):

Turnover: measure of how quickly inventory is sold. Often synonymous to revenue.
Usufruct: the right of enjoyment enabling a holder to derive profit or benefit from property that either is titled to another person or which is held in concurrent estate, as long as the property is not damaged or destroyed.
Volatile: organic compounds that can evaporate at normal temperature and pressure
White Paper: authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. Used to educate readers and help people make decisions
Wood energy: energy derived from woody biomass such as fuelwood, charcoal, black liquor etc.

Woodfuel: fuel from woody biomass such as fuelwood and charcoal.

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  any form of subsidy that does not involve a direct transfer.