Policies aimed at enhancing adoption of energy efficient, less polluting fuels, stoves and cooking practices need to be aligned to the realities of household multiple uses of fuels and stoves. In this paper we assess energy ladder model by using large nationwide survey data of 3665 Kenyan households collected in 2009. We show that the energy ladder is still sufficient to explain multiple fuel use and stove, and that the use of ‘fuel or stove staking’ metaphor was unnecessarily. Instead, we propose a metaphor ‘fuel and stove balancing’ to explain how uptake of single to multiple fuels or stoves happens gradually, through upwards and downwards movement on the ladder. Factors that influence stove balancing go beyond socio-economic and demographic characteristics to include stove type technology, markets, and financial factors. These factors are systematical analyzed using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT-2) framework that is based on seven constructs of technology adoption. They include performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, price value and habit.

旨在促进采用节能、污染较少的燃料、炉灶和烹饪方法的政策需要与家庭燃料和炉灶的多种用途的现实保持一致。在本文中，我们通过使用 2009 年收集的 3665 户肯尼亚家庭的大型全国调查数据评估能源阶梯模型。我们表明能源阶梯仍然足以解释多种燃料使用和炉灶，以及“燃料或炉灶桩”的使用比喻是不必要的。相反，我们提出了一个比喻“燃料和炉子的平衡”来解释如何通过在梯子上的向上和向下移动来逐渐吸收单一到多种燃料或炉子。影响炉灶平衡的因素不仅限于社会经济和人口特征，还包括炉灶类型技术、市场和财务因素。使用基于技术采用的七种结构的技术接受和使用统一理论 (UTAUT-2) 框架系统地分析了这些因素。它们包括绩效预期、努力预期、社会影响、便利条件、享乐动机、价格价值和习惯。