Clean stoves and fuels could reduce household air pollution and carbon emissions, but uptake remains low as the upfront cost of the stove and recurring costs of fuels are unaffordable to many low-income users. Ghana, like many national and international efforts, has focused on providing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves for free. We developed an LPG specific mobile money based digital financial service, called GasPay, where consumers can register for a wallet, make savings deposits, check their balances, and exchange LPG cylinders.
In a year-long randomized control trial in peri-urban Ghana, we assess the impact of providing free durables, offering an LPG-specific DFS, GasPay, and those interventions combined on LPG adoption and use and the abandonment of polluting fuels. We see very high uptake of the stove intervention, but very low uptake of GasPay. Providing a free LPG stove, access to GasPay, and both those interventions all increased any LPG use, on average (11.5% [ 95th Confidence Interval (CI): 6.4%, 16.6%], 10.7% [95th CI: 6.9%, 14.5%], and 11.5% [95th CI: 6.1%, 16.9%] respectively). We observe no impact on spending on polluting fuels.
Qualitative follow-up reveals that further digital literacy education is needed and that participants increased LPG use via the refilling stations rather than the GasPay depots due to liquidity constraints and safety concerns. Providing durables and financial tools can increase LPG use, but further work is needed to support saving behaviour and Ghana’s transition to a cylinder recirculation model.
Annelise Gill-Wiehl is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (ND). She studies how to increase the effectiveness, adoption, and affordability of engineering technologies in low-income communities to avert health and climate impacts. Specifically, Gill-Wiehl investigates how to achieve clean cooking fuel transitions and reductions in carbon emissions and personal exposure for the women cooking. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach, she primarily uses quantitative methods from impact evaluation, paired with ethnographic qualitative work. Over the past decade, she has led experimental, quasi-experimental, and observational study designs at her field site in Shirati, Tanzania, and has active projects in Ghana, Kenya, and Bangladesh. She has a Ph.D. in Energy & Resources from University of California, Berkeley and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from ND. She just recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.