SOLAR ELECTRIC COOKING
Clean Energy Cooking
BACKGROUND
Around 2.6 billion people cook using polluting open fires or simple stoves fuelled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal. Each year, close to 4 million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene. (WHO 2021). Intensive development patterns have historically relied on inexpensive and energy-dense fossil fuels, which also happen to be the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions with the principal greenhouse gas contributor CO2’s concentration in the atmosphere increasing from 2.57 parts per million (ppm) to 4.14 ppm in December 2020 (UNEP, 2021).However, new, clean technologies such as the ISECs can reorient development along a more sustainable trajectory without relying on energy-dense fossil fuels for cooking purposes.
What is an ISEC?
An ISEC (insulated solar electric cooker) is a solar powered heat electric cooker that generates heat through resistive heating, the generated heat is used for cooking. Power loses are minimized through applying a layer of insulation around the cooker.
Solar power is arguably the cleanest, most reliable form of renewable energy available. In Uganda the sun’s rays are almost directly overhead due to its location along the equator, Uganda is endowed with an average of 5-6 kWh/m2 radiation and 7kWh/m2 per day on flat surfaces. The insolation is highest at the Equator.
ISECs can accelerate the transition to an affordable, reliable and sustainable energy system in cooking and set a trend for other technologies in the cooking sector to completely switch to clean renewable energy / fuel sources such as solar hence ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. ASEI looks at scaling up production with a target of disseminating ISECs to the vast majority of the Rwenzori region and other parts of the country.
ASEI is part of a global learning community that collaborates on the design, assembly and distribution of the solar powered heat cookers with a goal of disseminating them in the vast majority of the Rwenzori region (Western Uganda-Africa) and Uganda. ISECs can accelerate the transition to an affordable, reliable and sustainable energy system in cooking and set a trend for other technologies in the cooking sector to completely switch to clean renewable energy / fuel sources such as solar hence increasing access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.