Abstract
New opportunities are opening for electric cooking (eCooking) as a cost-effective, practical and desirable solution to the twin global challenges of clean cooking and electrification. Globally, momentum is building behind the transformative potential of eCooking to achieve a range of environmental and social impacts. However, cooking is a complex, culturally embedded practice, that results in an array of behavioural change challenges that must be understood and overcome for these new opportunities to translate into impact at scale. The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme was designed to explore this space and pilot innovative new eCooking services with the potential to rapidly scale. This paper reflects upon the programme’s key learnings to date on the behavioural change dimension of eCooking. It consolidates what we now know on the subject and highlights the gaps that remain, where further investigation is needed. The evidence shows that the uptake of eCooking can be hindered by (often false) perceptions around cost, taste and safety, the high cost and steep learning curve for new appliances, the lack of awareness/availability/after-sales service for energy-efficient appliances and the reluctance of male decision-makers to authorise appliance purchases. However, it also shows that the convenience and potential cost savings offered by energy-efficient appliances can offer an aspirational cooking experience and that uptake could be driven forward rapidly by urbanisation and changing lifestyles.
Highlights
Two-point-eight billion people still rely on polluting fuels and technologies to cook most of their meals, less than 800 million are without access to electricity [1].These statistics are usually quoted separately, examining them together reveals a potentially transformative opportunity for the two billion people who have access to some form of electricity, yet still cook with polluting fuels and technologies: cooking with electricity
It has highlighted the behavioural change barriers, as well as the drivers, drawing on established theory and Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) to identify viable strategies that might facilitate the wider adoption of eCooking
The evidence gathered suggests that to achieve the intended development impacts, strategies must extend beyond the initial adoption to the sustained use of these new appliances, whilst gradually nudging cooks towards the exclusive use of electricity and completely away from biomass
Summary
Two-point-eight billion people still rely on polluting fuels and technologies to cook most of their meals, less than 800 million are without access to electricity [1].These statistics are usually quoted separately, examining them together reveals a potentially transformative opportunity for the two billion people who have access to some form of electricity, yet still cook with polluting fuels and technologies: cooking with electricity. Two-point-eight billion people still rely on polluting fuels and technologies to cook most of their meals, less than 800 million are without access to electricity [1]. The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme was designed to bring together the clean cooking and electrification sectors to explore the emerging opportunities around cooking with electricity [3]. These two areas have been treated as two separate problems, with the clean cooking sector rarely considering electricity as a viable option and the electrification sector percieving cooking loads as outside of their scope
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