Energy Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 341-343, 1989 0360-5442/89 $3.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. All rightsreserved Copyright 0 1989 Pergamon Pressplc A CASE STUDY OF ENERGY USE FOR DOMESTIC COOKING BY URBAN DWELLERS IN COLOMBO CITY ROHANA ULLUWISHEWA Department of Geography, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka (Received 1 September 1988) Ah&act-Our research findings show that the predominant types of energy used for cooking by urban dwellers in Colombo vary with income range: low income groups use relatively more firewood, middle-income groups kerosene, electricity and LP gas, and high-income groups only LP gas and electricity. This use pattern is attributed to the cost of equipment, price of energy, convenience in use, and cleanliness. The urban poor use purchased firewood, which is the most inefficient, most costly and most inconvenient energy source. They spent a greater income share on energy purchases for cooking than other income groups, and would be the primary beneficiaries of improved stoves, increased firewood supplies and low-cost alternative energy sources. INTRODUCTION In the Third World cities, where population size has been increasing at an alarming rate, the demand for energy for domestic cooking has also increased rapidly. All energy sources are costly. Firewood is almost free in rural areas but becomes a commodity in the urban market. The access of urban dwellers to energy depends solely on income level. Source, quality and quantity of energy used for domestic cooking vary with income, especially in Third World cities where the income disparity between rich and poor is great. This study deals with the domestic-energy consumption pattern in relation to income distribution in Colombo. We conducted a survey involving 143 urban households from three income groups: 43 households were in slum areas with average monthly incomes of Rs 1000 (US $33), 80 households were located in middle-income housing areas and had average monthly incomes of Rs 3700 (US $123), 20 households of the high-income group had monthly incomes of Rs 20,000 (US $666). Supplementary data were also used. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Urban dwellers in Colombo depend on both traditional and modern energy sources. A summary is shown in Fig. 1. It is interesting to note that a considerable proportion of high-income urban dwellers used firewood, in addition to LP gas and electricity (Fig. 1). Of the 43 low-income households, 29 depended solely on firewood for domestic cooking; eight used both firewood and kerosene, five used both kerosene and saw-dust stoves, and one used kerosene only. Figure 1 shows that while firewood stoves were used daily, saw-dust and kerosene stoves were used only occasionally. Rubber wood was the main source of firewood and is sold at the door steps from bullock carts. Small bundles of firewood (1 kg of rubber wood) are also sold in small retail shops, which supplied 34% of the total purchased. Kitchen wastes such as coconut shells and husks, waste pieces of planks, bamboos, offcuts, etc were used as supplements. While 20 and 5% of low-income households used daily kitchen wastes and timber waste, respectively, on a supplementary basis, 66 and 10% used these ocasionally. Of the 80 middle-income households, 58 had gas cookers, 54 electric cooking equipment, and 30 kerosene cookers. Firewood use was substantially reduced (see Fig. 1). Only nine households had firewood stoves. It was found that 75-79% of the electric cooking equipment and 98% of the gas cookers were used daily, while 50% of the kerosene cookers were used only occasionally (Fig. 1). These kerosene cookers were kept as a stand-by source to be used in 341 EGY14:6-c