Join us for Talk 7 of Phase II on Talk
Series on Transitioning to Modern Energy for Cooking: Carbon financing for
Metered Devices, organized by Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS)
Programme in partnership with Finovista, In-country partner – India
with an aim to address the challenges in the global Clean cooking sector.
The World Bank estimates that achieving
universal access to clean cooking requires an annual investment of $25 billion.
However, finding a viable financial mechanism for the clean cooking sector
remains a challenge. To address this, stakeholders must explore and develop
innovative solutions that combine initiatives such as demand aggregation,
supporting companies for device/process development, direct partnerships, user
sensitisation, low-cost finance access, and carbon financing to reduce capital
and operational expenses.
Affordability is a key factor responsible for
the slow adoption of clean cooking solutions (both for CAPEX and OPEX), and
stakeholders must focus on reducing both initial and recurring costs. Carbon
financing can play a significant role in promoting and adopting clean cooking
solutions due to its health, environmental, and social benefits. The ecosystem
for clean cooking projects has benefited from improved regulations, including
international ISO standards, enhanced measurement, reporting, and verification
approaches, and better scrutiny of methodologies and input parameters. The
recent surge in carbon prices also makes carbon financing an attractive source
of financing for cookstove projects. However, stakeholders must work together
to build capacity in accessing and managing carbon finance in the country and
create a level playing field for all. This is especially crucial since over 2.4
billion people globally rely on polluting fuel sources.
The convergence of Carbon, Digitalisation,
and Energy (C-DEC) is taking place in the modern energy-based cooking sector. Gold Standard has developed a new ‘metered
methodology’ to ensure sound methodologies, realistic parameters, and
conservative assumptions while using digital measurement, reporting, and
verification (MRV) data. By improving the parameters for clean cooking carbon
projects, credits with higher integrity can drive better technologies and
incentives for sustained use.
MECS Programme is a UK Aid (FCDO) funded
global research programme, led by Loughborough University and the World Bank’s
Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP). In seeking to spark a new
approach to clean cooking, the programme researches the socio-economic
realities of a transition from polluting fuels to a range of modern fuels.
Whilst the research covers several clean fuels, the evidence is pointing to the
viability, cost-effectiveness, and user satisfaction that energy-efficient
electric cooking devices provide. The
programme calls for a 40, 60 by 2030
Challenge, for the adaption of Electric Cooking. It calls for 40% of all
households connected to grid or off-grid electricity to be using it for cooking
by 2030, and 60% of households using modern energy for cooking to be generated
from low-carbon sources by 2030.
The on-going Talk Series is an important tool
and now an established platform for promoting modern energy and clean cooking
services of the MECS programme in India, bringing together stakeholders from
modern energy cooking and allied sectors to enlighten about the various aspects
and challenges in adoption of clean cooking in India.