Two birds, one stone—reframing cooking energy policies in Africa and Asia

For the past 40 years, the dominant ‘policy’ on cooking energy in the Global South has been to improve the combustion efficiency of biomass fuels. This was said to alleviate the burdens of biomass cooking for three billion people by mitigating emissions, reducing deforestation, alleviating expenditure and collection times on fuels and increasing health outcomes. By 2015, international agencies were openly saying it was a failing policy. The dispersal of improved cookstoves was not keeping up with population growth, increasing urbanisation was leading to denser emissions and evidence suggested health effects of improved stoves were not as expected. A call was made for a new strategy, something other than ‘business as usual’. Conventional wisdom suggests that access to electricity is poor in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), that it is too expensive and that weak grids prevent even connected households from cooking. Could a new strategy be built around access to electricity (and gas)? Could bringing modern energy for cooking to the forefront kill two birds with one stone? In 2019, UK Aid announced a multi-million-pound programme on ‘Modern Energy Cooking Services’ (MECS), specifically designed to explore alternative approaches to address cooking energy concerns in the Global South. This paper outlines the rationale behind such a move, and how it will work with existing economies and policies to catalyse a global transition

Experiences of electric pressure cookers in East Africa

This paper seeks to highlight the emerging opportunity for manufacturers to enter the largely untapped market for efficient electric cooking appliances such as the Electric Pressure Cooker (EPC) in East and Southern Africa. The paper is an output of the UK Aid1 programme Modern Energy Cooking Services, a 5 year programme of work (2018 – 2023) led by Loughborough University. In East Africa, electricity networks are growing stronger and broader, opening up electric cooking to an almost entirely untapped market particularly in urban areas that are still dominated by charcoal. In each country, approximately 10 million people pay for polluting cooking fuels, yet they have a grid connection that is not used for cooking. Historically this has been due to the pricing and unreliability of the grids. As Grids get stronger and appliances more efficient the affordability and convenience of electric cooking is becoming more realistic. In Southern Africa, electric cooking has been and is more popular, however inefficient appliances are placing a heavy strain on national utilities, many of whom are now looking to manage demand more sustainably. Again, the advent of energy efficient appliances changes the dynamic for the household. Cooking is deeply cultural and any new energy efficient cooking devices must be compatible with local foods and cooking practices. This paper presents insights from cooking diaries, focus groups and ‘kitchen laboratory’ experiments carried out in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. The results show that EPCs are not only acceptable, but highly desirable. Over 90% of the menu can be cooked in an EPC and certain foods require just one fifth of the energy of a hotplate. In real homes, participants with EPCs, rice cookers and hotplates chose the efficient appliances for approximately half their menu and for these dishes, they used roughly half the energy of the hotplate. Without training and with limited experience of the new devices, the trial participants in Kenya who cooked solely on electricity had a median daily consumption of 1.4kWh/household/day, and the cooking of 50% of the menu on an EPC utilised 0.47kWh/household/day of that total. Given that EPCs could have cooked 90% of the desired menu, with appropriate training and broader experience, the median could have been reduced to less than 1kwh/day/household. This research feeds into a new UK Aid programme, Modern Energy Cooking Services and concludes with recommended design modifications that could enable users to do more cooking with EPCs and open up sizeable new market segments including strengthening weak-grid and off-grid

eCook: what behavioural challenges await this potentially transformative concept?

This paper aims to identify and understand the challenges that may confront the scaling up of a proposed battery electric cooking concept (Batchelor 2013), eCook, which offers the potential for emission free cooking, with time/money savings and broader environmental benefits from reduced fuelwood/charcoal consumption. By drawing on the literature on the transition to electric cooking in South Africa and more broadly, literature from across the Global South analysing the uptake of ICS (improved cookstoves), LPG (liquid petroleum gas) and solar home systems, this study identifies the factors (e.g. successful delivery models and marketing strategies) that have enabled these innovations to reach scale. This knowledge is then related to the eCook concept, by identifying the potential users of this promising technology and outlining potential marketing strategies, as well as a user-focused iterative design process, that will enable social enterprises to reach them. Uptake is predicted to be most rapid in hot climates where fuelwood/charcoal is purchased and low energy diets and low power cooking devices are the standard. Mobile enabled fee-for-service (utility) business models, the establishment of a service network, awareness raising campaigns on the benefits of clean cooking, female-focussed training programs and bundling eCook systems with locally appropriate appliances to enable productive activities are seen as key to reaching scale

Governing decentralised energy provision: approaches to energy transitions in Kenya [poster]

Governing decentralised energy provision: approaches to energy transitions in Kenya [poster

Policy perspectives on expanding cogeneration from bagasse in Malawi

Agro-industries have the potential to make a substantial contribution to sustainable energy supply in Africa, including energy access in rural areas. This paper focuses on the drivers and barriers to wider use of cogeneration from sugarcane bagasse in Malawi as there is a potential for the technology to enable access to electricity in rural areas. The paper gives an overview of the policy landscape for the energy sector and the sugar industry in Malawi. The research involved site visits, focus group discussions, and individual semi-structured interviews with participants from key government departments, businesses, research institutes and international agencies. It was found that energy sector reform, the proposed feed-in tariff for renewable energy, and risk are the key issues for investment in this area

The Kenya eCookBook: Beans & cereals edition

This edition of the eCookBook was produced in Nairobi and focusses on one of the most energy intensive popular food groups: beans and cereals. The ceramic jiko full of red hot charcoal simmering away beside the kitchen door, with a pot of beans ontop is a familiar sight across Nairobi. Even in 2019, many households with a kerosene, gas or electric stove still cook ‘heavy foods’ like beans on charcoal because most people believe it’s cheaper – as you will see in this eCookBook, it is not

Exit strategies for resettlement populations

Throughout the world welldrilling in drought prone areas creates unnatural settlements which have a high dependency on the water supply. A number of agencies in Africa have been working with displaced populations (through conflict or environmental factors) to restart communities in home areas or in new areas. These programmes have involved creating water points which are magnets for returnees. The communities become dependent on the new water supply and are vulnerable to its breakdown. This causes a challenge for creating sustainable maintenance systems. Handover of maintenance from the NGO to local government is often difficult and it is at this point that much of the gains of the agency can be undone. Agencies use a variety of participatory approaches, village level maintenance structures, standardised pumps to fit government recommendations, organisation of spares supply and training of local government teams. This paper presents the work of an interagency project funded by the British Government (DFID) which compares and contrasts recent variations on these approaches. The project is undertaking a thematic comparison of three case studies in Africa. This is for the practical objective of identifying common elements of a successful exit strategy for resettlement programmes that have introduced new water supplies

Organisational exit strategies for water supplies

This paper is drawn from the output of a DFID funded KAR project, R7136. This paper presents the conclusions of a two-year project to collect and collate data on sustainable rural water systems. It describes in brief the methodology, referring to last years interim paper presented at the WEDC conference. The paper describes how a careful exit strategies can make up for emergency entry strategies and makes practical suggestions for essential components to any exit strategy. The suggestions are informed by field data gathered from three partners in Mozambique and Malawi. It shows that technical competence is a key factor in longer term sustainability. While social mobilisation is desirable for long term development, it’s influence on availability of water is not as key as “competence”. It emphasises the importance of even the smallest involvement during the start-up phase and draws attention to this for future emergency planning. The paper describes the role of spare part supply chains and second level repair agents. The paper concludes by presenting a summary of the key factors agencies should consider when planning an exit strategy

Battery-supported eCooking: A transformative opportunity for 2.6 billion people who still cook with biomass

Globally, 2.6 billion people still cook with biomass, resulting in interlinked health, environmental and drudgery challenges. The uptake of improved biomass cookstoves has barely kept up with population growth, yet SDG7 hopes for universal access to modern energy by 2030. This paper explores a potentially transformative new approach to facilitate access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for cooking by leveraging rapid progress in electrification and falling prices of solar PV and lithium-ion batteries: battery-supported electric cooking. This paper presents empirical evidence on energy use, menu choices and cooking preferences from 83 households in 4 countries who transitioned from other fuels to electric cooking. A techno-economic model demonstrates that battery-supported electric cooking can be cost competitive with current expenditures on cooking fuels. No significant change in household menus occurred and the energy-efficient devices enabled 100% of everyday cooking with just 0.87–2.06 kWh/household/day. Our initial findings have already directly influenced the development of a 5-year UKAid-funded programme in collaboration with the World Bank, ‘Modern Energy Cooking Services’, and the new draft energy policy in Uganda. The paper concludes with two key policy recommendations: design lifeline tariffs inclusive of cooking and develop local markets for culturally-appropriate, quality-assured, energy-efficient cooking appliances

Low carbon energy for development network (LCEDN)

This case study describes how, from small beginnings in two UK university hubs in 2012, the Low carbon energy for development network (LCEDN) evolved into an international, multidisciplinary, multisectoral programme in under a decade. Funding from four UK government departments and three research councils supported the network's three wide-ranging research programmes, spanning: Understanding sustainable energy solutions (USES), Transforming energy access (TEA) and Modern energy cooking services (MECS). The enduring aim of the network was to serve as a multidisciplinary intersectoral platform for academics, practitioners, policymakers and private sector organisations from across the UK working in partnership with global stakeholders on low carbon energy and international development. The case study critically analyses the process whereby the core team, with their shared interest in energy and development, sought to meet the requirements of different funders, while providing opportunities for less experienced researchers to learn how to manage complex interdisciplinary research programmes.</p