The stove has been developed by a local company, Bluewave Limited, as part of the SuperBlue Project, which is meant to promote the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel for cooking in Malawi.

The project is being implemented with financial and technical assistance from the United Nations Development Programme, through the Global Sustainable Business programme, which is a global initiative operating in nine African countries including Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique as well as nine other countries in Central America, Asia and Europe.

The Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (Mipa) says the planned production facility consists of a stove assembly plant capable of producing 100 000 stoves yearly, an ethanol fuel plant with a capacity of 12-million tons-a-year of ethanol, and a bottle manufacturing/recycling plant, with a capacity of 24-million 0,5 l bottles a year.

Bluewave has over the last four years developed, tested and prototyped the ethanol based stove in close cooperation with the University of Vienna. "The current model is efficient, robust, fulfils all safety standards and can be produced locally. Bluewave does not have the capacity to produce and sell the stoves on a scale that would make it economically viable and is seeking partners for the venture," Mipa explains.

Minister of Energy, Mines and Natural Resources Henry Chimunthu-Banda asserts that the project could also have an impact in mitigating the effects of climate change. He explains that with 100 000 families in Malawi using the ethanol-based stoves, 720 000 t of carbon could be abated and 21 300 ha of trees saved yearly.

For its part, UNDP says it foresees the project as important in increasing access to alternative-energy sources. "Part of the Growing Sustainable Business project will build capacity at the ministry of energy for formulating and executing energy policy and strategies and also build capacity at the University of Mzuzu in northern Malawi to develop alternative energy sources," the agency says, adding that it will finance the capacity development and alternative energy equipment for trial sites in Malawi.

Malawi is among the producers of cane ethanol in the region with production emanating from two plants, which are Ethco-owned Dwangwa plant in the central lakeshore region and another one owned by a local firm Press Cane at Nchalo in the southern region. The two are adjacent to sugarcane plantations and sugar factories for South African sugar group Illlovo.

Each of the two plants have a design capacity of 16-million litres of ethanol but the two factories are producing below capacity because of the low availability of molasses.

Malawi's director for science and technology Henry Mbeza says with government planning, the two plants can produce to capacity since there is room for expansion of sugarcane plantations in the country.

Currently, poverty and population growth are posing escalating pressures on Malawi's indigenous forests and associated biodiversity as the country's energy balance is heavily dominated by firewood, paraffin and charcoal.

Current annual household consumption of firewood and charcoal in Malawi are at 7, 5-million tonnes and exceeding sustainable supply by 3, 7-million tonnes.

Consequently, there are many projects that are going on in Malawi to find alternative sources of energy, and notably the Danish Development Agency and the United States Agency for International Development are supporting a private firm, D & S Gel Fuel Limited to introduce and market a gel fuel technology for household heating and cooking in Malawi.

Promotion activities for gel fuel, an ethanol galetin blend, are currently underway but so far the reach of the technology remains low.

The Global Sustainable Business programme is also working with the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) in a project to promote the adoption of energy saving cooking technologies in Malawi.

Among other initiatives, GTZ is supporting the production and usage of an improved charcoal based cooking stove (rocket stove), which is being manufactured by a private firm, Ken Steel Engineering, which is based in the commercial city, Blantyre.

Malawi is also testing the practicability of using ethanol as an alternative fuel to drive vehicles, and has just imported a flexi-fuel vehicle from Brazil to be used in the tests.

The other alternative energy sources that the southern African country is exploring include wind, solar power and cow dung.

Malawian experts have already been to India to study how the Asian country is applying such technologies and is also working with South Africa on the technologies courtesy of an agreement to work together on science and technology that the two countries signed last year.