Abstract
Whilst the rapid spread of solar photovoltaics (PV) across Africa has already transformed millions of lives, it has yet to have an impact on the main energy need of poor households: cooking. In the context of falling global PV prices, recent advancements in battery technology and rising charcoal/fuelwood prices in severely deforested regions, the door is opening for a potentially transformative alternative – solar electric cooking (PV-eCook). While initial investigations focused on solar home systems sized for cooking (cooking device, battery storage, charge controller and PV array), it has since been shown that battery-supported electric cooking (eCook) can also strengthen national, mini, micro and nano grids. This paper presents a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) based methodology, accounting for a wide variety of socio-cultural, political, technical and economic factors which are expected to affect the uptake and potential impact of eCook across a variety of African contexts. It shows the concept has considerable viability in many African countries, that there are significant sizeable markets (millions of potential users), and that within the next five years the anticipated costs of eCook are highly competitive against existing ‘commercialised polluting fuels’.
Highlights
Introduction to eCookIn the context of falling global PV prices, recent advancements in battery technology and rising charcoal/fuelwood prices in severely deforested regions, the door is opening for a potentially transformative alternative: battery-supported electric cooking, or eCook [14,15,16,17,18]
This paper presents a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methodology, which independently evaluates each of the factors predicted by Brown & Sumanik-Leary [15] to affect the viability of PVeCook in different contexts
The weighting and ranking process was designed to predict the ease of rolling out the eCook concept in each particular country context
Summary
Introduction to eCookIn the context of falling global PV prices, recent advancements in battery technology and rising charcoal/fuelwood prices in severely deforested regions, the door is opening for a potentially transformative alternative: battery-supported electric cooking, or eCook [14,15,16,17,18]. It has since been shown that using a battery charger and battery to support cooking appliances during blackouts in a similar way to a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) could strengthen unreliable national, mini-, micro- and nano-grids. For grid operators, it could offer a form of demand side management and/or create additional revenue [18]. 3 billion people use biomass for cooking [1] This pervasive use of solid fuels – including wood, coal, straw, and dung – with traditional cookstoves results in high levels of household (HH) air pollution, extensive daily drudgery to collect fuels and manage fires, and serious health impacts. Approximately 275 million people live in woodfuel depletion ‘hotspots’ – concentrated in South Asia and East Africa – where most demand is unsustainable [4]
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