World-class Indonesian stove lost in local market due to subsidy

(THE JAKARTA POST)Indonesia’s innovated biomass stove has managed to enter the world market and sell in four continents, an expert said on Thursday.

East Java-based Brawijaya University lecturer Muhammad Nurhuda, the innovator of the stove, said that the stove was marketed and produced by a Norwegian third party, Primecookstove in Europe. It was also sold in several countries in three other continents but, ironically, it was not commercially produced in Indonesia.

"Besides the Norway-based marketing and production, it was sold in several countries such as India, Mexico, Peru, Timor Leste, Cambodia and African countries," Nurhuda said as quoted by Antara news agency on Thursday in Malang, East Java.

He said that the stove was only produced by order in its birth-country Indonesia, due to tight competition with a subsidized gas-based stove.

Nurhuda acknowledged that the biomass stoves he created were less competitive especially for urban usage in Indonesia, as the consumers widely used LPG-based stoves, which enjoyed a subsidized gas price.

"If the biomass stove users live in rural areas, which has plenty of vegetative waste as fuel, there will be no problem. But in the cities, users would have to buy pellets or milled wood. It is less efficient than an LPG stove," Nurhuda said.

The stove fueled with milled wood produced by a machine with the production capacity of 20 tons per day. Pellets, palm kernel shells and even wood splinters could alternatively fuel the stove, making it handier to use in rural or vegetation-dense areas, he said.

Nurhuda had conducted research since 2008 to create the stainless-steel stove. The stove, consisting of three components, is priced at Rp 195,000 (US$14.15) each for the end-user buyers