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Report 3 (of 6): Mirte' Stoves
- Ethiopia
Introduction
In Ethiopia, one of the most popular staple foods
is injera (household bread) which is a large flat
pancake eaten by the majority of Ethiopians at least
once a day. Injera baking is the most energy-intensive
activity in Ethiopia. It accounts for over 50% of
all primary energy consumption in the country and
over 75% of the total energy consumed in households.
The food is so popular that the average family burns
around 20 kilogrammes of wood a week just making
injera.
Traditional injera baking has unique requirements.
Injera needs a quick, fast heat, evenly distributed
over a 60 centimetre ceramic plate called a mtad'.
The flat plate mtad' is balanced upon three stones
above the open fire and fuel is fed under the mtad
from all directions. While this produces hot, fast
flames which are essential for good injera, the energy
consumption is highly inefficient - approximately
93% of the fuel is wasted - unsafe and unhealthy.
Injera baking is an unpleasant and dangerous activity.
Highly flammable fuels, such as leaves and twigs,
are used by cooks to achieve the high heat necessary
to cook injera quickly and these often flare out
as they ignite, causing injury through burns. Large
amounts of smoke are produced by these fires and
many women complain about stinging eyes and coughing.
Mirte Stoves
The Mirte stove has been specifically designed to
cook injera. By enclosing the fire, the smoke is
removed which cuts down on weeping eyes; the stove
reduces the chance of getting burned because there
is no longer a risk of back flashes from fuel as
it ignites and there are no dancing flames; it is
clean and modern; it saves energy and reduces the
expenditure on fuel because it only uses half the
amount of fuelwood as the traditional fire.
(Figure 1) The Sections of the Mirte Stove
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The Mirte stove can be produced either on a large-scale
by mechanical means, or on a small-scale by hand.
Hand production is ideal for the Mirte because it
encourages decentralised production and therefore,
expands the geographic range of the product. The
cost of the stoves reduces as the number of producers
increases.
Stove Design
(Figure 2) The Mirte Stove
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The mirte stove is a multi-section stove (figure
1) made from moulds - one mould is used for the four
pieces of the main stove and two moulds are used
for the chimney rest. The stove is made using lightweight
materials and can be assembled and disassembled in
order to be moved or transported (figure 2).
The Mirte stove was originally designed using light
weight pumice with cement in a ratio of 5:1. Although
pumice is a major source for constructing building
materials in Addis Ababa and other areas in the Rift
Valley, it is not found everywhere in Ethiopia.
Another common material that is more widely found
than pumice, especially in the northern areas, and
is used extensively in the building materials industry,
is scoria or red ash. In areas where no pumice or
scoria is found, sand and cement are used. Compared
to traditional injera baking, all these materials
improve the efficiencies of the stove by nearly 100%
in household use and fuel consumption is reduced
by 50 %.
The scoria-cement mix is proving to be extremely
popular with the consumers in Addis Ababa because
it is cheaper to produce than the pumice-cement mix
stove, and it also increases the robustness and durability
of the stove.
Fuelling the Mirte Stove
In an attempt to save Ethiopia's scarce forestry
resources, the Mirte has been adapted to cook injera
using fuels other than wood, for example, dung and
agricultural residues, such as sawdust and coffee
husk waste. With the exception of animal dung, the
Mirte performed as well with other fuels and materials
as with the original woody biomass pumice-cement
stove design.
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(Figure 3) Cooking Injera on the Mirte Stove |
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Commercialisation of the Mirte Stove
The Mirte is now commercially produced in a dozen
areas in Ethiopia by over 30 production units, employing
over one hundred people. Nearly, 50,000 stoves have
been sold since mid 1995 and 30,000 of these have
been sold since April 1997. The popularity of the
Mirte stove is expanding rapidly to small urban and
rural areas, and over one third of the stoves have
been produced and sold outside Addis Ababa. The major
demand for these stoves is in the rural north of
Ethiopia where woody biomass is very scarce.
Women have been active participants in the production,
sale and installation of Mirte stoves. In fact, one
in three Mirte producers are women. The stove needs
to be installed in households by trained artisans
and many women have been trained to carry out this
task. They are also the primary beneficiaries of
the improved stoves, both as household cooks and
as small-scale commercial injera bakers who bake
and sell from their homes and often depend on injera
baking as their sole source of income.
The Mirte stove was designed specifically to cook
injera in Ethiopia and provides a safe, healthy and
fuel efficient alternative to cooking over an open
fire. However, it would be possible to adapt the
stove to meet cooking requirements in other countries
while maintaining its benefits in health, safety
and fuel efficiency. For further information, please
contact:
Melessew Shanko, Megan Power, P.O. Box 180884, Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.
Tel: +251 1 613395 E-mail: mgp@telecom.net.et Alastair
Gill ESD Limited Overmoor Farm Neston Corsham Wiltshire
SN13 9TZ England
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 812102 Fax: +44 (0) 1225 812103
ITDG would like to thank Energy for Sustainable
Development (ESD) - in particular Mike Bess - for
designing the Mirte stove, preparing the original
notes and providing the photographs shown in this
information sheet.
This programme is one in a series of five about
what ordinary women, often in very challenging circumstances,
are doing to build better lives for themselves and
their families.
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