HealthyFire
We are
A social enterprise that provide households in urban areas of Ethiopia (beginning with Addis Ababa) with access to highly efficient fan-forced gasifier stoves in an innovative way to those who are most in need. Our business model is “improved cookstoves + pellets + charcoal buy-back”, wherein we sell stoves and pellets, and buy-back the charcoal our stove generate by giving the customer equal the mass of the charcoal that they return in new pellet fuel. We convert the charcoal into fertilizer, water, and air filters thereby sequestering carbon.
We provide
Our services are provided through what we call aggregators. For each target area, we identify knowledgeable, trusted, and competent individuals and train them to become aggregators who then sign up customers in the target area and provide service to them via souqs. The latter serve as two-way exchange sites. Customers purchase pellets from the souqs and the souqs in turn buy-back the charcoal that the customers produce. Both the aggregator and the souq work on commission.
It works
We make fuel pellets from biodegradable waste (e.g., spent coffee grounds, coffee husks, sawdust, wood chips, khat stems). Using pellets as a fuel source in gasifier cookstoves is superior to any other solid biomass because pellets are uniform in size, have low moisture content, have a high energy density, and are easier to transport and store. When these pellets are burned in our fan-forced gasifier stoves, they turn into biochar (i.e., charcoal).
It matters
Our business model not only mitigates health impacts from indoor air pollution, it will also sequesters large quantities of carbon by reducing CO2 emission to the atmosphere. By converting large quantities of waste biomass to fuel pellets, we minimize the need to remove wood from forests for cooking. All of this is achieved while creating hundreds of jobs.
Questions & Answers
Ethiopia is the third most important country (after China and India) where the impact of introducing improved cookstoves will be largest in terms of avoided global temperature increase, through decreases in emissions of short-lived climate forcers such as soot as well as through decreases in carbon dioxide emissions. It is also a country where the health impact of using solid fuels in traditional stoves have the largest impact: more than 60,000 people (mostly women and children) die every year and another 5 million suffer from respiratory diseases. If you care about these issues and want to work with someone who prioritize good work, new ideas, and a long-term relationship, then you should consider working with us.
We are in the business of providing sustainable energy solutions to households and small businesses in Ethiopia. Our business model is “Improved cookstoves + fuel pellets + charcoal buy-back.,” wherein we sell stoves and fuel pellets made from biomass waste such spent coffee grounds, coffee husks, sawdust, wood chips, khat stems, etc. Our stoves produce charcoal, which we buy-back from our customers by exchanging twice the mass of the charcoal they return in new pellet fuels. We convert the charcoal into fertilizer, water, and air filters and sell it back to our customers and the broader population. In so doing, we remove waste from the city, clean the air people breath in their home, and combat climate change by sequestering carbon.
We exclusively work in Ethiopia, especially in urban areas. Our current target population is residents of Addis Ababa, especially poor households and small businesses.
