The Gorilla Cook Stove is a biomass gasifier stove that provides clean, affordable cooking using agro-waste fuels such as rice husks and pellets. Manufactured at the UR-CST workshop, the stove reduces deforestation, indoor pollution, and fuel costs for Rwandan households. Tagline: Save Trees.
- Status: Startup stage
- Cohort: GIIH Cohort 1
- Company: Gorilla Cook Stove
- GIIH support received: 11,000,000 RWF
- Sector: Clean energy & biomass gasification
- Field tested: South Province, Kamonyi & Gisagara districts
Overview
The project produces a cooking stove that is more environmentally friendly and cost-effective — the Gorilla Cooking Stove. It gasifies low-cost agro-waste into clean syngas for household and institutional cooking.
Rwanda’s clean cooking challenges
- Limited and expensive cooking fuel resources
- Unsustainable cooking technologies
- Risk to natural forests without alternatives like Gorilla stove technology
- Deforestation threatening forests and livelihoods
- Indoor pollution from traditional cooking causing asthma and chronic disease
The Gorilla Stove — clean cooking solution
- Low-cost fuel: agro-wastes (rice husks, pellets) at 100–200 RWF/kg vs charcoal at 300 RWF/kg
- Clean burning: eco-friendly syngas with lowest CO₂ emissions
- Highly efficient — converts waste into useful energy (reuse)
- IoT-ready: DC fan powered by solar, grid, or batteries
- Safe: high insulation, stable base, supports up to 15 kg saucepan
- Fast cooking with easy operation and maintenance
- Field tested in South Province
Comprehensive solution
From raw agro-waste through pelleting and packaging to the Gorilla gasifier stove — a full clean-cooking value chain.
Performance results
- Fuel consumption rate: 1 to 1.2 kg/hr
- Ignition time: 50 seconds
- Gas generation time: 2 min 40 sec
- Time to boil water: 1 L in 5–7.4 min · 2 L in 10.4–14.5 min
- Gas temperature: 91°–111° C
- Temperature beneath pot: 249°–401° C
- Thermal efficiency: 17–26%
- Thermal output: 0.68–1.02 kWt
- CO₂ emission: 0.6 kg/ton of fuel
- Black carbon: 50 µg/m³ of gas
Product & manufacturing
Stoves are manufactured at the UR-CST Workshop. Benefits include clean burning, very low rice-husk fuel cost, easy operation, fast cooking, and giving women and children valuable time back in their day.
The stove can be modified for institutional use with multi-burner configurations for schools and canteens.
Target market & break-even
- Rwanda’s medium and low-income households
- Total market: over 2.5 million households
- Target supply: 3,000 Gorilla Stoves per year
- Break-even: 1,488 units ( 6 months) at 250 units/month + 40 kg pellet fuel per stove/month
Business & sustainability model
- Initial investment: USD 37,000 (stove + pellet machinery)
- Projected sales: 200+ stoves/month and 8 tonnes pellets/month
- Pellet price: 100 RWF/kg (40 kg/family/month)
- Year-1 investment plan: rolling machine, welding equipment, pelleting machine ( USD 37,200)
- Year-1 projected revenues: USD 600,000 (stoves + pellets)
- Year-1 EBITDA: USD 121,920
Field deployment
Stoves initiated in Kamonyi and Gisagara districts. Feedback is promising — many people are demanding the Gorilla stove.
Competitive advantages
- 80% of competitors rely on firewood and charcoal at high fuel cost
- Aligned with GoR target to halve 80% dependency on conventional cooking by 2024
- Highly efficient with Tier 3–4 emission levels
- Strong team and 1-year warranty
Competitors’ products are not efficient and hence not environmentally sustainable.
Team
- Eng. Philbert Dusenge — Founding Advisor (Electrical Engineer, clean energy innovation)
- Eng. Tom Rwahama — Co-founder / Team Lead (Mechanical Engineer; MBA Project Management & International Business)
- Eng. Noella M.P. Umuhoza — Product Manager (Electrical Engineer, cooking energy technologies)
- Victor Ishimwe Bugabo — Mechanical Design Technician
