CPA 059 – Charcoal Stoves in Kenya

Audit Analysis

The BioLite Improved Cook Stoves programme in Kenya is a VVB-verified energy efficiency project with a quantified 5% leakage deduction and a confirmed common-practice additionality test, but it is undermined by the absence of a buffer pool, unaddressed reversal risk, three corrective action requests from the VVB, and nine cross-document contradictions that erode confidence in the underlying data.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠No buffer pool is stated in any available document, leaving no mechanism to cover potential reversals (stove breakdown, replacement with traditional stoves) over the 20-year crediting period.
• ⚠Reversal events are explicitly 'not addressed' in the extracted record, a significant gap for an energy-efficiency project where hardware failure is a realistic risk.
• ⚠Three corrective action requests (CAR 01–03) and three findings were raised by the VVB, indicating unresolved compliance issues at the time of verification.
• ⚠Nine contradictions across documents (baseline method, leakage rate, FNRB units, crediting period, benefit sharing, safeguards, usage rate, ERR figures) materially reduce data reliability.
• ⚠The PDD describes the baseline as jurisdictional while the monitoring report describes it as project-specific; the more recent VVB-verified monitoring report is privileged, but the discrepancy is unresolved.

Credit Vintages