Adoption of sustainable and clean heating in the residential sector to reduce air pollution-related health impacts

Submitted by saladin on Mon, 03/21/2022 - 14:40

Measures

Adoption of sustainable and clean heating in the residential sector to reduce air pollution-related health impacts

Due to its geographical location, heating is a necessity given the cold and long winter seasons. However, a substantial proportion of the country’s households do not have access to clean and efficient heating technologies. 45 per cent of the urban households and 89 per cent of the rural households rely on solid fuel stoves (coal and/or biomass as fuel sources) for heating purposes. Based on survey results in (World Bank, 2020), around 83-84 per cent of the urban and rural households that are relying on coal and biomass heating utilises low efficiency, high emissions traditional heating stoves.

In alignment with the suggestion put forward in the World Bank report (World Bank, 2020), HELE stoves may be the appropriate heating technology to be promoted to the households. It is noted that these stoves reduce the fuel consumption by 40 per cent due to its higher efficiency while keeping a larger area of their homes warm. Indoor air pollution is also reduced with positive impacts on health. For instance, the pilot programme has seen the mean PM_2.5exposure decreased 65 per cent from 92.3 µg/m³ to 32.4 µg/m³(World Bank, 2020). This meets the WHO interim target, IT-1 of 35 µg/m³, for annual mean concentration for PM_2.5(World Health Organization, 2014)_. The results also show that the CO exposure dropped below the WHO air quality guidelines.