Nepal - Fueling electric cooking with carbon finance

This project was approved under the CCAC's 2022 call for transformative action in the household energy sector. 

2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to clean cooking. Moreover, the woodfuel used for cooking leads to about 2% of global emissions every year. Household energy represents the largest share of controllable black carbon (BC), responsible for over half of human-generated emissions. Solid fuel use for cooking also contributes to methane and tropospheric ozone - two additional short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). 

Electric cooking plays a critical role in meeting Nepal's ambitious commitments to target and mitigate climate change, while achieving universal energy access.  

Project reference: [HHE-22-001] Nepal - Fueling electric cooking with carbon finance 

What we're doing

Emerging Internet of Things (IoT) technology in electric cookstoves enables real-time data collection for accurate monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) while ensuring adherence to best business practices within the electric cooking market. The data gathered also plays a key role in the MRV of carbon credits. Establishing a carbon finance program for electric cooking will attract much needed capital for the development of a sustainable electric cooking market. 

This project will introduce the efficient induction stove with embedded IoT functionality, collecting real-time data on electricity consumption, stove usage time, Global Positioning System (GPS) location, tampering warnings, and estimated tonnes of carbon dioxide and SLCPs avoided. This will enable the measurement of real use of household cooking devices to provide more accurate emissions reductions estimates. 

Overall, this project will apply revolutionary ECs monitoring technology to unlock carbon finance and drive a sustainable ECs market in Nepal. The finance will decrease the cost of implementation and enhance the affordability of ECs to marginalized consumers. Project learnings will be disseminated to other relevant project developers and throughout the region where ECs have a real potential to scale up if affordability is addressed.