Glossary - GIZ HERA Cooking Energy Compendium

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

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.

CDM: the Clean Development Mechanism, instigated by the Kyoto Protocol. Emission reduction credits can be an additional source of funding for household energy projects.

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.

Energy crop: plants grown for energy production.

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: wood used for energy generation.

Household energy: energy consumed by individual households (institutions and small scale enterprises) for cooking, space heating and cooling, lighting, and other household tasks.

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.

Traditional biomass: woodfuels, agricultural wastes and dung burned for cooking and heating purposes. The expression is mainly used for developing countries.

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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