Unlocking electric cooking on Nepali micro-hydropower mini-grids

Abstract

Electric cooking has the potential to improve quality of life for people who cook using biomass, both by improving health by eradicating harmful emissions and by removing the need to collect fuelwood, thus freeing up time for other activities. This paper reports on a study that introduced electric cooking as an alternative to biomass-based cooking in 10 households in Simli, a rural Western Nepali community, to assess its feasibility in rural offgrid contexts. Quantitative and qualitative data from a cooking diary study and electrical mini-grid data were collected, assessing the compatibility with micro-hydropower grids and Nepali cooking practices. Datasets of Nepali cooking practices and meal energy requirements were generated, revealing that generally two meals are cooked per day and that, on average, electric cooking consumes 0.25 kWh/day and 0.14 kWh/meal. Participants simplified their cooking practices and found chapati hard to cook on the induction hobs due to inexperience with the cookers. Conversely, dal and rice were found to be easy and fast to cook in pressure cookers on the hobs, leading to a switch from cooking chapati-vegetables based meals to dal-rice based meals. Fuel stacking was common, with participants reverting to their biomass stoves to cook chapati, and due to a lack of reliable electricity supply. Participants found that the transition to electric cooking provided more time for households, due to the reduction in length of time to cook a meal and less time required to collect firewood, and enjoyed cooking on the stoves due to elimination of indoor air pollution. The electrical data analysis showed that control issues, voltage instability, and limited microhydropower plant capacity provide obstacles for electric cooking, especially as it becomes more widely practiced. Nepali people typically cook at the same time as peak demand for electricity, exacerbating the problem of limited capacity in villages like Simli. Only three households continued to use their electric stoves regularly due to a lack of reliable electricity supply, showing that widespread adoption of electric cooking is currently unfeasible. The running costs of electric cooking were lower than the effective labour time costs of fuelwood collection, but initial capital expenses for the electric cooking system and monthly electricity costs are a further barrier to adoption in rural Nepal.

Renewable Energy Transition for the Himalayan Countries Nepal and Bhutan: Pathways Towards Reliable, Affordable and Sustainable Energy for All

“…This will increase the use of direct electricity, especially in cooking [85]. Therefore, enhancing the quality of life of women and children mostly in rural areas by reducing time spent on collection of fuelwood thus creating additional opportunities for employment, heath improvement and education [86]. During the transition, the energy supply mix changes considerably from fuelwood and hydropower dominated electricity generation to solar PV electricity dominated in 2050.…”

Tracking the Adoption of Electric Pressure Cookers among Mini-Grid Customers in Tanzania

“…The scope of the appliances in question diverges from previous studies, and the present trial also differs in that the customers were trialing induction hobs rather than EPCs. In Clements et al [13], 10 households used induction stoves on a 30 kW MHP mini-grid in western Nepal. The authors used a version of the cooking diary methodology employed in this research to gather detailed data about stove use, fuel use, and cooking practices during a two-week baseline phase and a two-week electric cooking phase.…”

Techno-Economic Modelling of Micro-Hydropower Mini-Grids in Nepal to Improve Financial Sustainability and Enable Electric Cooking

“…As well as powering households in a community, MHPs provide energy for commercial connections such as shops and mobile phone masts, community services including schools and health posts, and industrial end uses such as flour and grain mills, all of which can be referred to as productive end uses (PEUs) [3,[10][11][12][13]. MHPs are operated at constant power but community electricity demand varies widely, often from a relatively low level at off-peak times to a high level at peak times in the morning and evening [14,15]. Consequently, many MHPs suffer from low load factors and a large proportion of generated energy is wasted [5,16].…”

“…However, rice cookers and electric kettles are becoming increasingly prevalent, comprising a significant proportion of demand due to their high power, and therefore increasing generated income where consumption is metered [10]. Recent electric cooking trial studies conducted by the authors in rural Nepal used cooking diaries to characterise the Nepali cooking context, collecting detailed information on participants' usage of traditional and electric stoves [14,15,22]. The studies found that, as people tend to cook at similar times and peak loads are often already high, with only 10 and 15 households cooking with electricity out of around 450 and 1100 households, respectively, the generation capacity was often reached, showing that electric cooking scalability in MHP communities is currently limited.…”