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Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) is a eight-year programme funded by UK Aid (FCDO)

By integrating modern energy cooking services into the planning for electricity access, quality, reliability and sustainability, MECS hopes to leverage investment in renewable energies (both grid and off-grid) to address the clean cooking challenge. MECS is implementing a strategy focused on including the cooking needs of households into the investment and action on ‘access to affordable, reliable, sustainable modern energy for all’.

Existing strategies are struggling to solve the problem of unsustainable, unhealthy but enduring cooking practices which place a particular burden on women. After decades of investments in improving biomass cooking, focused largely on increasing the efficiency of biomass use in domestic stoves, the technologies developed are said to have had limited impact on development outcomes. The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) programme aims to break out of this “business-as-usual” cycle by investigating how to rapidly accelerate a transition from biomass to genuinely ‘clean’ cooking (i.e. with electricity or gas).

Worldwide, nearly three billion people rely on traditional solid fuels (such as wood or coal) and technologies for cooking and heating. This has severe implications for health, gender relations, economic livelihoods, environmental quality, and global and local climates. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), household air pollution from cooking with traditional solid fuels contributes to three to four million premature deaths every year [I]–more than malaria and tuberculosis combined [ii]. Women and children are disproportionally affected by health impacts and bear much of the burden of collecting firewood or other traditional fuels.

Greenhouse gas emissions from non-renewable wood fuels alone total a gigaton of CO2e per year (1.9-2.3% of global emissions) [iii]. The short-lived climate pollutant black carbon, which results from incomplete combustion, is estimated to contribute the equivalent of 25 to 50 percent of carbon dioxide warming globally – residential solid fuel burning accounts for up to 25 percent of global black carbon emissions [iv]. Up to 34% of wood fuel harvested is unsustainable, contributing to climate change and local forest degradation. In addition, approximately 275 million people live in wood fuel depletion ‘hotspots’ – concentrated in South Asia and East Africa – where most demand is unsustainable [v].

Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) is an eight-year research programme funded by UK Aid (FCDO) and led by Loughborough University. MECS 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 works in close collaboration with NGOs, governments, the private sector, academia, policy representatives, and communities across 16 countries to accelerate the shift from biomass to genuinely clean cooking.

In India, the programme was launched in early 2020, and works across the intersections of policy, finance, supply chain and promotion of electric cooking to enable the transition to modern fuels for cooking. It supports India’s emergence as a global hub for manufacturing clean cooking devices for domestic and international markets, aligned with the Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India missions, as well as the objectives of the GoElectric and LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) campaigns launched by the Government of India.

Some of the key interventions of the programme in India are:

  • Unique Entrepreneurship Development Programme in Clean Cooking (EDP CC) to nurture and scale up the start-ups and innovators in electric and solar cooking eco-system.

  • Supporting Indian Innovative solutions, that succeeded in the Global Leap awards for Electric Pressure Cooker (EPC).

  • Working with organizations to plan for large-scale commercial pilots for electric cooking using energy-efficient devices like electric pressure cookers and supporting them through funding, technology Identification  and manufacturer connects.

  • Carrying out the first studies into how cooking with electricity is compatible with Indian cooking culture and confirming the energy and cost savings that can result leading to the publication of the Indian eCookbook Talk Series on Transition to Modern Energy in Cooking – A first-of-its-kind,  India-led global platform to engage with stakeholders on key issues in transitioning towards modern energy for cooking.

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