Abstract
Limited access to clean energy has long been an obstacle to livelihood improvement of populations mired in energy poverty. Cooking with traditional biomass contributes to high levels of indoor air pollution, thus imposing significant threats to public health. Due to the accessibility and affordability of clean fuels for rural residents, this study proposes that renewable solar energy be employed to supply power for induction cooking stoves (ICS) through solar home systems (SHS), and estimates both the costs and health benefits of upgrading to ICS and SHS in lower-middle-income countries (LMCs) in Southeast Asia. Disability-Adjusted Life Years and the value of a statistical life year were employed to estimate the health benefits of ICS-SHS. The results suggest that the health benefits brought by ICS-SHS alone can surpass the estimated minimum cost for an ICS-SHS in the six LMCs in Southeast Asia. This study provides a potential reference for getting other energy poverty regions involved with affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy, as well as simultaneously tackling indoor air pollution caused by cooking.
Highlights
Reliable, sustainable, and modern energy is the aim of UN Sustainable Development Goal (UN-SDG) 7, which is critical to improving livelihoods and fighting against poverty for billions of people around the world
The cost–health benefit analysis in this study proves that the health benefits brought by the adoption of solar home systems (SHS) are far higher than the investment in the long run, the initial cost may be a real obstacle for poor people; after all, health is something that can be squandered in the future
This study proposes that renewable solar energy be employed to supply power for induction cooking stoves (ICS) through solar home systems (SHS), thereby realising clean cooking, improving indoor air quality, and solving the energy access problem simultaneously
Summary
Reliable, sustainable, and modern energy is the aim of UN Sustainable Development Goal (UN-SDG) 7, which is critical to improving livelihoods and fighting against poverty for billions of people around the world. Three billion people still lacked clean cooking fuels as well as technologies [1], forcing them to rely on traditional biomass fuels (e.g., crop waste, dung, wood, etc.) for daily energy needs Most such populations live in rural areas of the developing world, mainly distributed in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia [2]. The lack of access to clean cooking fuels forces poor people to rely on inefficient and polluting cooking systems [4], in which solid fuels (biomass, wood, and coal) are often not fully burned Such use of low-quality fuels leads to several sustainability challenges: (1) A labour challenge because of the time-consuming collection of biomass [5]; (2) deforestation and land degradation; and (3) most importantly, the indoor exposure to harmful gases and particles. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), household air pollution, mostly from cooking smoke, is linked to around 2.5 million premature deaths annually [2], which adds a burden on national health systems attributable to household air pollution [9], and further restricts the social and economic development of such countries
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