Bhutan?s fuel wood consumption at the rate of 1.3 tonnes per capita is amongst the highest in the world. Despite achieving almost 100% electrification, a large proportion of Bhutanese will continue to use fuel wood for cooking and space heating purposes using biomass stoves that are very inefficient. Almost all the firewood comes from felled trees and there is little use of biomass waste and residues from agro-forestry/wood industries which could substitute a substantial portion of the fuel wood from felled trees. There is therefore an urgent need to introduce clean burning and fuel efficient stoves that meet the Bhutanese utility requirements. Also, stoves that use granulated biomass fuel (e.g. wood chips and sawdust pellets) from residues and wastes from agro-forestry/wood industries have immense potential to curb deforestation and substitute imported fossil fuel such as kerosene and LPG. Accordingly, Druk-Care Engineering has researched and developed several clean burning and biomass fuel efficient stoves that use advanced combustion concepts and principles. While it is clear that the new stoves developed are much cleaner burning and fuel efficient compared to the existing biomass stoves, these need to be demonstrated to all concerned under real field conditions to enable future large scale improved stove intervention.

For demonstration, two bulk cook stoves each are proposed to be installed at monasteries in Gamri area where a large number of fuel wood is cut down.The study aims to capture other important aspects such as: the user convenience, suitability, the duration and frequency of stove use, kitchen cleanliness, firewood accessibility, space heating and smoke emissions (outdoors and indoors) all of which influence the firewood consumption, health and hygiene, and wellbeing of the beneficiaries.