Cleaner cooking stoves offer hope for 1 billion Africans using wood, charcoal

For mother of two Mary Kavutha, cooking inside her own kitchen was a luxury she didn’t have until recently.

Two years ago, the Nairobi businesswoman still relied on charcoal, taking the stove outside because the smoke made indoor cooking difficult.

Now breakfast starts with an induction cooker, switched on at the wall and controlled with the turn of a dial.

The change wasn’t driven by climate policy, but by the daily calculations that shape household life here. Things like cost, speed, safety and whether she can cook near her children without filling the home with smoke.

She says: "When I compare it with the charcoal (stove) it is the best. For one, induction (stove) is very fast, it is very safe while using it. For me now, I have babies, it is very safe with the children."

Kavutha says charcoal used to cost her about 150 Kenyan Shillings, or 1 US dollar and 15 cents, each day.

Electricity tokens worth 100 Kenyan Shillings, or about 80 cents, now last into the next day and cover several meals.

Kavutha says: "When I compare it with the charcoal it is very cheaper. Because, like in a day when I was using the charcoal, I find that I am using around 150 Kenya Shillings ($1.15 ) with the charcoal per day. And with this one (induction stove), when I buy a token of 100 Kenya Shillings ($0.8), it lasts me to the second day. You find that I have used it (in preparing) my breakfast."

According to the International Energy Agency, nearly 1 billion Africans still rely on wood, charcoal and other fuels that produce harmful smoke.

It also estimates that household air pollution from those fuels contributes to about 850,000 deaths each year in Africa.

Kavutha’s switch is part of a wider push to make clean cooking affordable, not only available.

The financing behind it works through carbon credits.

When households use less charcoal, firewood or other polluting fuels, clean cooking companies can calculate the emissions avoided, have those reductions verified, and sell credits linked to them.

That expected revenue helps companies raise money in advance, lowering the price paid by customers who might not be able to afford a stove upfront.

At BURN’s cookware display in Nairobi, the company is showing the products it hopes can help drive that change.

The Nairobi-based firm makes electric and efficient biomass cookstoves, and says it has distributed more than 7.3 million stoves across 11 African countries.

Its induction stoves include computer chips that allow usage to be tracked remotely, giving the company data on whether the stove is being used and how much energy it consumes.

Peter Scott, founder and CEO of BURN, says: "People said, oh clean cooking, how do you know if people are really using the stove or not? This is real time through GSM, so we know how many minutes per day, how many watts per day and maybe people are not that familiar with induction cooking. It's a revolution. You know, we can boil 1 L of water in 3 minutes."

Carbon finance has long faced criticism over the credibility of some projects, especially where emissions savings are hard to prove.

Clean cooking companies say stronger standards, Bluetooth monitoring, digital verification and real-time usage data are making the credits more reliable.

BURN says an efficient biomass stove that would normally retail at about 40 US dollars can cost customers as little as 5 dollars after carbon subsidies.

More expensive induction cookers can be financed through carbon credits and short-term pay-as-you-go plans that spread payments over several months.

Investors provide the upfront money that cuts the retail price, then receive revenue from credits generated as households reduce their use of charcoal, wood and other polluting fuels.

Scott says: "(The) only way that clean cooking is going to scale on the continent is through carbon project finance and so it's a great model. Governments can earn revenue from it, we earn revenue, customers get an amazing product they would never get unless they had that subsidy that's brought by carbon project finance."

He adds: "Africa needs about 15 million stoves a year. So right now we do about 2 million stoves a year. So, we are just kind of scratching the surface. But yeah, the goal is to get to 15 million stoves per year. Of course (according to reported UN projections) Africa is going to be 4 billion people by 2100 and so the demand for clean cooking is just going through the roof."

In June, the International Energy Agency announced that Africa had secured 900 million US dollars in new financial commitments towards clean cooking technologies.

The agency said more than 30 African governments, accounting for about 80% of Africans who still lack access to clean cooking, have introduced 121 new clean cooking policies since the Paris climate summit in 2015.

But the sector has also faced setbacks.

In February, Kenyan clean cooking firm Koko Networks, once hailed as a poster child of Africa’s green transition, closed after failing to win a government letter of authorisation to sell carbon credits.

Critics say the case showed the risk of making carbon credits the foundation of the transition.

George Mwaniki, WRI (World Resources Institute) Kenya representative and head of air quality for WRI Africa, says: "If we depend wholly on carbon credits to support the transition, it will be extremely slow and it will not happen at the pace that we need it. The other issue for carbon market is before you can trade on the carbon market, you need to build the asset."

His concern is the timing, as companies need money to manufacture and distribute stoves before households can use them, cut emissions and generate the credits that repay investors.

That makes carbon finance useful, but not always enough on its own.

At Kavutha’s home, the charcoal stove she once depended on sits outside, beside sacks of fuel still used by neighbours.

The induction cooker has brought cooking back into her home.

Kavutha says: "For one, when I was using charcoal I could not cook in the house. I would have to take the stove outside the house. So, (because of )the smoke, you see. But for this one , it is very safe. Again, it has privacy."

The larger test of the rollout of cookware like this is whether the financing behind that switch can keep working at the scale Africa’s clean cooking transition needs.