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Africa/Global: New Horizon for Off-Grid Solar
AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 15, 2019 (2019-07-15)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
With their most dramatic success in Kenya and other East African
countries, off-grid solar home systems are expanding rapidly,
reaching more consumers and extending beyond basic lighting and
mobile-phone charging, now even offering bundles with solar-powered
flat-screen televisions. Costs continue to drop precipitously, and,
according to
Beyond Fire, a new report released at the end of May, the next
new horizon may be in the kitchen, with solar-energy-powered
cooking.
No, this is not “solar cooking” using
heat generated from the sun´s rays (which only works when the
sun is shining). The report focuses on the potential for electric
cookers that are efficient enough to be powered from a
solar home system.
At present, more than 3 billion people (40% of the world´s
population) still rely on solid fuels for heating and cooking. If
(or when)this new development takes off, it could save hundreds of
thousands of lives lost to indoor pollution from open fires. It
could also save time lost in gathering fuel for millions of women
in rural Africa and Asia, as well as slowing deforestation and its
impact on the climate crisis.
In 2010, the Clean
Cooking Alliance of donors and non-governmental organizations
was formed to address this issue. But progress has been limited.
The priority to date has been improved cook-stoves using biogas or
biomass. But technical development in this field is slow, and
the initial cost for a home or community biogas plant using animal
waste is high. With these obstacles, the familiarity and low-cost
of cooking with wood and charcoal still make it the preference,
even as women have to go farther to gather supplies.
Shifting to cooking with solar-electricity-powered slow-cookers or
pressure-cookers will face the same issue of familiarity as current
efforts. Proposed solutions must be adapted to attract consumers
with quality as well as low price. But technological advance in
this area is more rapid. The authors of the Beyond Fire report
anticipate that the willingness of rural consumers to adopt new
technology, demonstrated with mobile phones, home solar, and pay-
as-you-go financing, may also kick in for e-cooking once the price
is low enough and the cookers sufficiently matched to consumer
preferences.
I spoke with Toby Couture, one of the co-authors of the report, who
runs E3 Analytics, an energy consultancy based in Berlin (https://www.e3analytics.eu/).
Although the WhatsApp conversation was not recorded, and is not
quoted directly here, his additional explanations were very helpful
in understanding the report and its implications.
Among other comments, he noted that the report is already getting a
high level of interest from donors and others involved in promoting
clean cooking, and that initiatives for small-scale field tests of
such systems are well under way. One key factor, he stressed, would
be whether any of the key players in financing off-grid solar
energy decide to make major investments, adding such an option to
their rapidly growing markets for larger-scale as well as basic
home solar systems.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the executive summary and other
selected excerpts from the 83-page report, which is replete with
tables and graphs illustrating the technical analyses presented.
The full report is available at
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/beyond-fire-report-launch/
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate and the environment,
visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-env.php
For a case study of one prototype high-efficiency cooker tested in
Bangladesh, see “Solar e-Cooking: A Proposition for Solar Home
System Integrated Clean Cooking,” Energies, 27 October 2018
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/11/2933/htm
Additional background on current efforts to promote a transition
away from wood and charcoal to somewhat cleaner alternatives is
available at the following links:
Clean Cooking Alliance – wide range of relevant background sources
https://www.cleancookingalliance.org/resources/566.html
Two critical analyses about clean cooking initiatives to date
appeared in the Washington
Post in 2015 and on Quartz in 2018.
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
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Beyond Fire: How to Achieve Electric Cooking
World Future Council
May 29, 2019
Authors
Toby D. Couture (E3 Analytics)
Dr. David Jacobs (IET - International Energy Transition GmbH)
[Excerpts only: full report, with footnotes, references, tables,
and graphs, is available at:
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/beyond-fire-report-launch/]
Introduction
Approximately 40% of the global population still cook with either
wood, dung, coal, or charcoal to feed themselves or their families,
placing tremendous strain on the surrounding environment and on
human health.
* While roughly 1.1 Billion people still lack access to electricity
worldwide (IEA 2017), almost three times that amount (or roughly
3.06 Billion) still rely on solid fuels for heating and cooking.
This is likely to put significant additional strain on already
stressed forest resources in many parts of the world.
* On current trends, SEforAll [Sustainable Energy for All]
estimates that by 2030, as many as 2.3 Billion people worldwide
will still lack access to clean cooking technologies due to a
combination of insufficient investment in clean cooking solutions
and ongoing population growth.
*In several countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the use of wood and
charcoal represents over 90% of total final energy consumption.
* Unsustainable firewood and charcoal use is the single largest
source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in many countries and
significantly exacerbates the negative effects of global climate
change. Burning firewood and charcoal is closely linked to both
forest degradation as well as to deforestation, while increasing a
region’s exposure to a host of other environmental risks such as
soil loss, desertification, loss of biodiversity, and water
scarcity.
In rural Africa, such as in this photo from South Africa, women
most often have the burden of gathering fuel for cooking. Credit:
Wikimedia Commons.
* Reliance on such traditional fuels for cooking is directly linked
to an estimated 4 million premature deaths around the world, mostly
of women and children, due to high levels of indoor air pollution.
* There is an estimated USD $123 Billion in annual costs to human
health, to the environment, and to local economies caused by the
use of solid fuels like wood and charcoal for cooking.
* The availability and affordability of both firewood and charcoal
are likely to emerge as major problems in the coming decades for
many countries around the world as the associated pressures from
climate change, timber harvesting, and industrial agriculture
combine to accelerate the rate of forest loss.
Transitioning to more sustainable forms of cooking in regions like
sub-Saharan Africa therefore remains a pressing global issue. As
these few facts highlight, finding sustainable alternatives to
cooking is not only an environmental imperative; it is critical for
improving human health, for poverty reduction, as well as for
advancing economic opportunity in the world’s poorest and most
under-privileged regions. And yet, in contrast to other major
global issues, the issue of cooking rarely figures at the top of
the policy agenda. Despite the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) aim to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable,
and modern energy for all,” the volume of finance being allocated
to the sector is in fact declining. This is partly why a growing
number of leading international organizations are urging donors and
investors to allocate more time and resources to achieving
sustainable cooking sector.
Notably, the Green Climate Fund, in partnership with the World Bank
and the GIZ, has made substantial investments in clean cooking
solutions, including in Bangladesh, where a total of USD $82.2
Million (EUR 73.3 Million) has been committed over a 3.5 year
period, as well as in Kenya and Senegal, where a total of USD $26.7
Million (EUR 23.8 Million) has been committed over a period of 4
years.
Both of these initiatives are a sign that while the total funding
commitments being allocated to support the transition to
sustainable cooking remain a fraction of what is needed, awareness
is growing of the urgency of the challenge.
Significant declines in the cost of renewable energy technologies
(namely solar PV modules, inverters and battery systems) as well as
progress in mini-grid and storage technologies is beginning to make
solar the most cost-effective source of new electricity supply in
many regions of the world, most notably in rural and remote regions
. This is particularly the case in much of sub-Saharan Africa,
where solar resources are abundant, and the costs of either diesel
systems or of expanding existing transmission and distribution
infra- structure is often prohibitive.
While attention on improving the sustainability of the cooking
sector has begun to increase in recent years, much of the effort to
tackle the challenge of sustainable cooking in Asia, Latin America,
and Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be focused on improving
conventional cook stove technologies, promoting the use of pellets
from either wood products or agricultural wastes, shifting to LPG
[liquefied petroleum gas, or propane], as well as the overall
efficiency of charcoal production.
Even though these improvements are certainly needed, continuing to
further entrench the reliance on combustible fuels cannot be long-
term sustainable solution to the challenge of cooking.
*********************************************************
Executive Summary
Achieving sustainable cooking is one of the great challenges of our
time. An estimated 4 million premature deaths are caused each year
by indoor air pollution caused by existing cooking practices still
widespread in many parts of Southeast Asia, Latin America, and
Africa (WHO 2018). In Africa alone, the African Development Bank
(AfDB) estimates that over 600,000 deaths per year are caused by
existing cooking practices, the majority of which are concentrated
in sub-Saharan Africa. nor a truly sustainable solution to the
challenge of cooking.
The difficulty of finding cost-effective substitutes for
traditional cooking fuels, most notably wood and charcoal, is made
even more challenging by a range of cultural, behavioral and other
factors that hinder the adoption of alternatives. Hundreds of
millions of citizens worldwide have rarely if ever known any other
form of cooking than traditional firewood and charcoal: this makes
the adoption of alternatives a slow and often piecemeal process.
Over the past three decades, the majority of the focus in the
cooking sector in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa has been on
promoting improved cook stove technologies rather than on a
fundamental transition of the underlying energy sources or fuels
being used; this can be seen in the many of the national energy
strategies recently developed, notably in sub-Saharan Africa .
While the promotion of more efficient cookstoves remains an
important interim solution and has delivered impressive results in
certain countries, this report argues that focusing on improved
cookstoves is neither a truly long-term nor a truly sustainable
solution to the challenge of cooking.
In light of these various interrelated challenges, this second
edition of the Beyond Fire report sets out to build on the report’s
first edition, which was originally published in 2016. This revised
edition draws on new data and analysis to provide an update on how
the economics of cooking with electricity in a stand-alone solar
home system (SHS) as well as in a mini-grid context have evolved
since then.
Clearly, overcoming the economic cost barrier is only part of the
challenge: sustainable cooking technologies must be well adapted to
individual communities’ way of life, and must be able to be easily
integrated with prevailing cooking habits . This means that the
transition to other fuel types, whether electricity or otherwise,
is likely to be a gradual process, underscoring the need to
increase efforts to accelerate this transition now. Raising
awareness of the alternatives, and better adapting solutions to
people’s actual behaviors and cooking preferences, is critical.
In order to provide a comprehensive comparison of existing cooking
options and of alternative cooking pathways, this report calculates
the costs range for cooking with various different appliances and
presents them in hanging bar charts in order to provide a snapshot
of their relative cost- competitiveness. As can be seen, the costs
of cooking with electricity both in mini-grid contexts and via
solar home systems is now well within the range of cost
competitiveness of other cooking alternatives, a significant
improvement from three years ago when the first edition was
published. Also, similar to the first edition, this report finds
that biogas-based cooking remains an economically attractive
option, particularly for households with livestock or other
suitable feedstocks.
A key improvement of this revised edition is that it sheds light on
the tremendous cost-saving potential of using higher efficiency
cooking appliances, in particular appliances like slow cookers and
pressure cookers:
* Over a one-hour cooking period, a pressure cooker uses
approximately one quarter (1/4) of the electricity of an electric
hot plate.
* Over a 4-hour cooking period, the gains increase further: a
pressure cooker is twice as efficient as a slow cooker, six (6)
times as efficient as an induction stove, and fully seven (7) times
as efficient as an electric hot plate.
* In terms of costs, there is currently a 3-to-4-fold cost
differential between a solar home system dimensioned for use with
high-efficiency cooking appliances versus one that is dimensioned
for use either with hotplates or induction stoves.
Given the limited financial resources available to most households
currently cooking with firewood and charcoal, it is therefore
critical to focus on deploying high-efficiency end-use appliances,
despite their slightly higher upfront cost, as the system-level
cost savings pay for themselves multiple times over.
In light of these substantial cost savings, using high-efficiency
end-use appliances has the potential to lead to a similar
“inflection point” as the emergence of LED lighting technologies on
the off-grid solar sector. The figure below provides a summary of
current cost ranges, in EUR/GJ, of the various cooking options
considered within the report.
There are two main reasons why the revised cost analysis has seen
such a significant improvement in the economic viability of
electricity-based options:
1. First, the cost of both solar modules and batteries has come
down significantly; since early 2016, the costs of solar and
storage systems have come down by between 30-50%, and continue to
decline as markets scale-up and technologies improve;
In Kenya, M-Kopa and other companies now sell home solar
systems that include a flat-panel TV as well as lights, outlets for
charging mobile phones, and a radio. Credit: M-Kopa.
2. Second, this analysis applies an updated methodology: in
particular, it moves away from the 1 GJ per person per year
benchmark in terms of final energy use, and models much more
precisely the actual electricity consumption of different end-use
appliances. Instead of needing 308 – 397kWh per person per year of
electricity, as assumed in the first edition, this revised analysis
finds that the per person electricity consumption when using a
higher efficiency slow cooker or pressure cooker ranges from 61 –
131kWh. Such energy efficiency savings make it possible to
significantly reduce the overall size (and cost) of both the solar
panels and the battery bank required to enable electric cooking.
These two changes recast the economics of cooking in a new and far
more competitive light than the first edition. One key finding that
emerges from this updated cost analysis is that cooking with
electricity (whether with solar home systems or in a mini-grid
context) using high-efficiency appliances can even make cooking
cheaper than what many households currently spend on firewood and
charcoal. The World Bank’s bottom-up research from across Sub-
Saharan Africa indicate that households spend on average between
EUR 1 – EUR 31/month on cooking fuels (World Bank 2014).
With slow cookers and pressure cookers enabling household cooking
costs of between EUR 15 and 21/month for SHS and between EUR 3.56 –
9.53/month for mini-grids, the economics of cooking with high
efficiency cooking appliances are becoming increasingly
compelling.
****************************************************
3.2. Barriers to Transition
There are many crucial challenges that continue to limit the uptake
of new and more sustainable cooking technologies.
These include:
* A number of cultural and behavioral barriers linked to cooking
habits, traditions, and taste preferences;
* High upfront cost of alternatives, including both the cooking
appliances themselves (the stoves or ovens) and the costs of
procuring the energy required to run them (i.e. paying for the gas,
the electricity, or the pay-as-you-go plan);
* The availability in many regions of zero- cost fuel wood,
gathered by residents directly from the surrounding environment,
which hampers the adoption of alternatives and impedes
substitution; it is estimated that only some 50% of households in
Sub-Saharan Africa pay something for their cooking fuels, with the
remaining 50% gathering firewood directly from the surrounding
area;
* The risk of reversion, which occurs when residents revert to
traditional cooking technologies even though cleaner options are
available, typically due to cost, preference, or other factors;
* Low income levels, which make it difficult to finance and
support the market uptake of more sustainable solutions,
particularly for lower income residents, or those at the bottom-of-
the-pyramid ;
* Lack of familiarity with (and occasionally even resistance to)
the use of new technologies ;
* The remoteness of many regions reliant on wood and wood-based
fuels for cooking, which increases the cost and logistical
challenges of delivering interventions.
As the above list highlights, the barriers facing the uptake and
diffusion of more sustainable cooking technologies are significant
and in many cases, difficult to over- come. Foremost among these
barriers are cultural and behavioral factors: cooking choices,
taste preferences and behaviors are deeply tradition-based and
location-specific, making it difficult to drive large-scale
substitution in the market, while also limiting the potential
scalability of alternatives. Overcoming both the cultural barriers
as well as the underlying economic barriers of cooking in
developing countries presents a formidable challenge. Cooking is
deeply embedded in people’s way of life, and is woven into the very
fabric of communities, which means that communities are likely to
remain more resistant to change than they might be with other
innovations such as the advent of mobile technologies. Thus, any
effort to scale-up alternative cooking solutions needs to be based
on a sound analysis of what actually drives the adoption and
diffusion of new technologies. Behaviors often run deep and the
cultural and other social factors surrounding the question of
cooking make this uniquely so with sustainable cooking.
A further challenge relates to the level of awareness of cleaner
cooking alternatives, including in particular of the possibility of
adopting electric-based cooking solutions: a number of high-profile
reports recently published on the clean cooking sector scarcely
discuss cooking with electricity at all, focusing instead on
improved cook-stoves, LPG, and other options.
The prevailing consensus among those working in the clean cooking
sector emerges as one of the greatest barriers: electric cooking
options are widely thought to require a national grid, and are
therefore not believed to be a viable option for rural and remote
regions, which is where most households reliant on firewood and
charcoal for cooking typically live. In such regions, grid
infrastructure often does not exist, income levels typically are
much lower, and power generation costs are often higher, making
electricity use at the scale required for cooking purposes
impractical, if not prohibitive, for most households. A further
challenge is that even in regions that do have access to the
national grid, power supply is unreliable, particularly in the
evening hours when most households do most of their cooking.
All of these factors, combined with the many cultural and
behavioral barriers to electric-based cooking, combined with the
lack of awareness of alternatives, have led many to argue that
cooking with electricity is not viable, especially in rural and
remote regions.
…
Recent examples of rapid adoption of new communication tools such
as smart phones in areas where not even landline phones existed
suggests the transition to the wide- spread adoption of new
technologies can be quite rapid, provided the right conditions are
in place. Key among these conditions are strong customer demand,
the presence of significant and tangible benefits over
alternatives, and the product being available at an affordable
cost. The question of cost is important in two different senses:
both the upfront cost, as well as the ongoing, usage-related cost.
…
*****************************************************************
Beyond Fire: 6 Steps to Achieve Sustainable Cooking
1. Governments need to set clear goals to transition away from
firewood and charcoal. The current energy strategies being
developed by national governments and donor community for most of
Africa and Asia are not doing enough to drive a meaningful
transition toward sustainable cooking solutions. Current strategies
still largely focus on improved cookstoves and the build-out of LPG
infrastructure, failing to recognize the tremendous potential of
alternative cooking solutions such as renewable electricity. By
focusing largely on improved cookstoves, the international
community might contribute to further entrenching technological
path dependencies which might be a barrier for the decarbonization
of the cooking sector in the long-run. In order to make meaningful
progress toward sustainable cooking, governments and donors will
need to commit to far more ambitious goals, including clear
strategies, more research on behavioral, cultural, and willingness-
to-pay issues, as well as financing resources.
2. Stakeholders spanning governments, foundations, donors,
investors and others involved in financing projects in the cooking
sector need to allocate more resources to support the availability
of pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) contracts. Such contracts convert the high
upfront cost of investments into smaller, more affordable payments
that can be made on a regular basis (e.g. monthly or bi-monthly). A
greater focus on providing affordable consumer finance, including
more local currency financing and longer loan tenors, is critical
to support the transition toward sustainable cooking.
3. Governments should introduce policies and incentives to reduce
upfront costs. This can involve targeted grants to encourage
adoption and foster economies of scale; it can also involve other
policies to help bridge the cost gap, such as “feebates” (e.g.
additional fees on certain items such as air conditioning units or
automobiles that are allocated to support rebates on other
technologies, in this case, sustainable cooking technologies); a
further approach might involve the targeted use of tax or duty
exemptions, such as those frequently offered on solar PV
components, or on high-efficiency cooking appliances such as
electric pressure cookers. These measures may be combined with
other legal and regulatory measures, such as restrictions on
charcoal use and distribution.
4. Governments should undertake root and-branch reform of fossil
fuel subsidies, which often benefit middle and upper- income
residents, and re-allocate them to support a rapid scale-up in
sustainable cooking technologies. In contrast to existing fossil
fuel subsidies around the world, which tend primarily to benefit
citizens with medium to high income levels, targeted support for
sustainable cooking technologies tend, by default, to support lower
income households. Re-allocating fossil fuel subsidies to
accelerate the transition toward sustainable cooking would bring
massive and lasting benefits to sustainable development, and would
contribute significantly to re-balancing the major inequities that
continue to persist between urban and rural regions. Reforming
fossil fuel subsidies and re-allocating the proceeds to support
sustainable cooking is perhaps one of the single most impactful
steps that governments around the world can take to accelerate the
transition.
5. Governments and donors around the world need to fund a greater
range of R&D projects, including projects to demonstrate the
viability of sustainable cooking solutions. Such initiatives could
focus specifically on providing further analysis of cooking with
different electric appliances such as slow cookers, pressure
cookers and even infrared cookers, analysis of the behavioral and
cultural acceptance of slow cookers and pressure cookers, as well
as to support the scale-up of new business models in the cooking
sector. These kinds of projects can be extremely valuable in order
to gather cost and performance data, analyze behavioral and other
challenges, while driving further technological innovation and cost
reduction. Moreover, strategically supporting the emergence of new
business models can help give rise to replicable, scalable projects
at various points of the cooking value-chain. Skepticism of
alternative cooking solutions remains high, not least among end-
users: one of the best ways to overcome this is first to
demonstrate their viability, and then to help drive technological
improvement and cost reduction by expanding the market, and
improving the mechanisms of delivery.
6. International climate finance should be mobilized to play a far
greater and more direct role in supporting the transition to
sustainable cooking, including through innovative mechanisms such
as the Green Climate Fund and the wider use of climate bonds.
Scaling up sustainable cooking represents one of the most
significant opportunities worldwide to generate major climate
change mitigation and adaptation “win-wins”: reducing reliance on
traditional fuels such as firewood and charcoal, improving human
health, while helping to preserve forest ecosystems and improve (or
maintain) overall ecosystem resilience. New financing mechanisms
such as climate bonds could significantly expand the volume of
capital flowing to the sector, and yield wide-ranging benefits for
both local citizens and the global climate.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
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