Cooking, Heating, Insulating Products and Services (CHIPS) for Mongolian ger: Reducing energy, cost, and indoor air pollution

Abstract

This project sought to answer three related questions about the Mongolian ger (ger are called yurt in Russian) assembled in the highly polluted, informal settlement areas called ger-districts. (1) Can replacing coal stoves with electric heaters in ger reduce indoor PM2.5 concentration? (2) What are the major causes of indoor PM2.5 concentration in ger? (3) Is it cost effective to heat ger with electric heaters? A year of testing insultation protocols in Ulaanbaatar was followed in the second year by the deployment of a package of “Cooking, Heating, Insulating Products and Services” (CHIPS) to nearly 183 ger in Bayankhongor, Mongolia. The results demonstrated that a better sealed and insulted ger could be heated with electricity less expensively than heating a typical ger with wood and coal. However, the use of electric heaters did not reduce indoor air pollution. The results showed that indoor pollution levels closely followed outdoor levels, with a small delay for air to infiltrate. The study suggests that to reduce indoor air pollution, enough ger in a district would need to be heated with electricity to significantly reduce the outdoor air pollution.