Aid for community-led energy – Parliament Committee
Written Evidence
Submitted by S Batchelor OBE,
on behalf the FCDO funded Modern Energy Cooking Service Programme
led by Loughborough University
Summary
This submission is by a large UK ODA FCDO funded programme working on modern energy cooking services, with a focus on integrating them in energy planning in Africa and Asia. It notes that the air pollution caused by cooking with polluting fuels affects approximately one third of global households and is the single biggest health risk to women and children. It is also a threat to the local environment and a strong contributor to global emissions, producing emissions that are approximately the same as the aviation industry.
UK ODA has worked alongside others to address this key issue for the last 3 decades, but the UN SDG tracker describes the progress on ‘clean cooking’ as ‘patchy’ especially in Africa. It has often been isolated from broader energy initiatives. UK ODA has been leading the way in a new alternative approach with greater focus on integrating modern energy cooking into broader energy planning. The research programme highlights the cost effectiveness of energy efficient electrical cooking appliances and shows how various strategies for integrating them into energy planning (centralised or decentralised) leverages infrastructure investment saving people expense on their monthly cooking fuel and strengthening returns on that investment.
Our submission proposes that the term ‘community- led’ is not straight forward and should be interpreted as business models and mechanisms that empower different communities with choice and agency, to optimise their involvement with generating electricity from renewable sources and to pivot away from harmful biomass cooking. The UK leadership on this is notable, and research funding has benefitted 4.8m people over the last 6 years, and leveraged over £400m in additional investment. It has raised the profile of this issue at the highest levels in G20, African Union, the UN, and the COP process. It has addressed the controversies of the carbon finance scandals and created high integrity carbon accounting that is commanding a premium price from industry undertaking carbon offsetting. This has dovetailed with the Paris Agreement processes enabling carbon finance to be used to ensure inclusion of very poor communities (off-grid, informal settlements and the displaced) in a just transition to modern energy. The action research tracks the contribution to improved health, improved local environment and reduction of global emissions and is presented as an example of energy inclusiveness.
More detail below.
Who is making this submission
This submission is made on behalf of the Modern Energy Cooking Research Programme (MECS). MECS is a £55 million, 7 year programme funded by UK Aid through the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, with an extension to 2030 being considered as part of the spending review. It is part of the Ayrton Fund. It is led by Loughborough University in partnership with the World Bank (ESMAP) and multiple other second tier partnerships. The work with the World Bank encompasses the WB Clean Cooking Fund, which in turn leverages wider World Bank IDA lending on energy.
The programme focuses on the enduring problem of cooking being undertaken by about one third of the world on biomass stoves (wood, dung and charcoal in Africa and Developing Asia). The indoor air pollution from such stoves is responsible for over 3 million early deaths per year, and harms the local environment (woodlands and forest degradation) and contributes to global climate influencing emissions. The emissions from biomass based cooking are roughly equal to those of the airline industry in its current form. UK ODA has been spent on the problem for more than 30 years but as the UN global system reports, progress has been ‘patchy’ and sometimes isolated from broader integrated energy planning, particularly in Africa.
In the last 6 years MECS has shown by action research resulting in new data and evidence, that centralised and decentralised provision of electricity is enhanced when it includes energy efficient appliances for electric cooking. Renewable energy generation is becoming more affordable and opening new windows of opportunity. Whether community led, private sector or public infrastructure, new business models, micro financing and smart monitoring are improving the access and reliability of energy initiatives. Appliances have become more energy efficient but still cook favourite foods so they taste right, and cooking with electricity is becoming increasingly affordable for an increasingly wide sector of society. Under the UK ODA structure, the MECS programme has so far worked with over 120 organisations, from 28 countries across 4 continents, and instigated the emergence of a global transition away from the business-as-usual approach to this issue. It has so far helped to improve the lives of 4.8m people, leveraged over £400m in private and public finance and is working to accelerate the transition from biomass to modern cooking on a global scale (December 2024 Annual review).
In terms of community led decentralised energy initiatives, MECS has promoted the value of integrated energy planning inclusive of cooking needs, and inclusive of all members of society. Many collaborative reports by MECS, for instance in this case in cooperation with the African Union ‘Sustainable Scaling: Meeting the clean cooking challenge in Africa’, highlights that electric cooking, particularly when powered by renewables, outperforms other clean cooking fuels in terms of energy efficiency, user convenience, and long-term cost-effectiveness and carbon reduction. It also emphasises electricity’s growing availability across Africa, aligning with broader energy access and climate goals.
The subject of the enquiry is therefore core to our work, and we welcome this opportunity to put some evidence in front of the enquiry. The following seeks to address each question in turn.
Community energy is best considered energy where the user has an influence on the system. We very much welcome the focus on this inquiry on ‘energy systems’, making clear the interest is in both how energy is supplied and how it is used. A major theme of our work is on the benefits of integrating planning for electric cooking into the planning for electricity access (improved demand improves returns on invesdtment). On the supply side of local energy, generally in the international development context professionals speak of Decentralised Renewable Energy (DRE) or off-grid energy as expressed in minigrids and stand alone home systems. However, we would expand that definition to include action taken by the community to enhance their availability and use of grid electricity. This is particularly important in informal settlements and displaced peoples locations where the government and utility are reluctant to support safe solid connection to households because it implies land rights. There are opportunities for communities to strengthen their connection to the grid, and to utilise the energy which leads to clear social and economic benefits. For instance, we have a number of partners who are utilising batteries, charging them on the grid and then deploying them for use with high power cooking when the grid fails, or if the household is not connected at all, the battery is ‘swapped daily and forms an alternative to a connected supply. Similarly, India has a grid-connected solar panels rooftop programme, with which the UK is collaborating, and by dovetailing it with eCooking it is enabling a more direct stacking of the use of LPG with clean renewable (PV) electricity.
It is difficult to disentangle the benefits of community led projects. Certainly any empowerment of communities, enabling them to choose, is beneficial to their agency and resilience. However, some communities struggle to organise to maintain technical equipment, and even if the action is community led, it can be important to have professional private sector to do the repair and maintenance. The WASH sector has learnt that there are limits to what a poor community can take on in terms of operation and maintenance. For that reason UK Aid is being used in Tanzania and Uganda to create networks of repair technicians fully versed in maintaining eCooking and electrical appliances.
It seems therefore to us, that while community engagement in energy systems is an important aspiration, this has to be implemented in collaboration with the private sector, who can provide longer terms support. Like any private sector action, it is important that communities don’t get locked into a single supplier, and that there is choice of supply and equipment. Community organizations within grid-connected urban neighbourhoods can also play an important role in spreading information about the benefits of switching to clean electric cooking, the ways to make electric cooking as affordable as possible and collaborative purchasing of appliances. They can also put pressure on utilities to improve supply when it is connected to supporting demand expansion.
Regarding the environmental and health benefits of energy initiatives, our own work is confirming that eCooking is a cost effective alternative to biomass based cooking (firewood and charcoal) if the community is paying for that biomass. Even where it is able to gather wood, off-grid eCooking solutions are attractive to the users for convenience, time saving, the reduced adverse health effects of burning biomass, and the reduction of forest degradation which can lead to localised drought and flooding. When carbon finance or some other form of subsidy is applied, the mini-grid and off-grid cost equation comes out even more attractive. Our recent research on mini-grids, with the analysis undertaken by commercial developers, showed that adding 50% households use of eCooking to a grid, increased net returns and reduced the payback period from 9 years to 3 years (on a grid that cost £1.5m without eCooking, and £1.8m with eCooking). The environmental impact is such that carbon finance can be used, see below.
Regarding the risk of community led energy, all social mobilisation comes with certain risks. In this case we would say the technical risk can be addressed by networks of suppliers, warranties and technicians, but it is the community mobilisation that forms the greatest risk. Again, the WASH sector has clearly shown how even a vital resource such as a water supply can be neglected if the social and cultural powers are disconnected from everyday life. Often the traditional leadership are older males, and yet inclusion of women has shown to be a key to longer term use. In the case of off-grid eCooking in a location of firewood collection, it has worked well in Malawi where it has been paired with solar pumping, which gets the men interested and engaged and yet it is women’s groups that supply and maintain. Such women’s groups then synchronise the use of panels for pumping and cooking, making it all cost and socially effective.
Communities in urban, peri urban, informal and displaced peoples settlements are often less coherent with higher turnover of people, and so social mobilisation for a community led energy initiative is inherently more risky. However, there can be a particular need in displaced people's settings for social licence to operate, through meaningful consultation.
In our own programme on Modern Energy Cooking Services, as said above, FCDO has supported us with £55m over 6 years. This has enabled us to leverage over £400m in energy initiatives. While not all of this is on community led energy initiatives, it has variously supported the integration of eCooking into international, national, non-government, and Civil Society led energy initiatives, across all the contexts of grid, minigrid and off-grid energy supply. Indeed, one of our key findings during our research was that ‘clean cooking’ as described in the Sustainable Development Goal 7, and having its own target of 7.1.2 (Universal Access to Clean Fuels and Technologies for Cooking ) had the unfortunate effect of isolating cooking from planning improved electricity access (i.e. SDG 7.1.1 Universal Electricity Access). This resulted in the possibility of energy efficient electrical cooking being forgotten as part of multi fuel cooking strategies pre 2018, and forgotten as a potential load on electrical systems. The latter lack of anticipation during the electricity system planning stage has resulted in new connections in Nepal being constrained to 300W which is not enough to cook, and there now having to be a round of new community led engagement to utilise the investments made.
The UK support to energy research through us, the Ayrton Fund and all the associated activities, has very effectively brought ecooking into national government policies, utility strategies and community led energy initiatives in a number of country contexts. It is good but there is still much to do. By working with Mission 300, which has pledged over $70 billion from the World Bank and Africa Development Bank, to reach 300 million people in Africa with new electricity connections, the UK led component on eCooking is set to leverage that programme of work to include community led energy initiatives inclusive of eCooking, and multiply by more than a factor, the ODA UK spend on this. Damilola Ogunbiyi, Chief Executive Officer of the Sustainable Energy for All, and previously the first female Managing Director of the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency where she initiated the Nigerian Electrification Project, has many times said that she regrets implementing the successful electrification programme only to latterly note the role that cooking plays in people lives. She realises now that they had neglected its role in load demand, ultimately multiplying the cost of meeting needs. Now engaged with steering Mission 300, she is determined not to let the same thing happen again. Indeed, by including eCooking in electricity planning, whether utility or community led, the returns on investment are improved by steady demand similar to our comment above about mini-grids, and that in most cases this is pivoting money that is already in the community being spent on monthly polluting cooking fuel costs into paying for the electricity for the same cooking and giving the investment a return.
Our own programme and partners engage with communities via the government, utilities, min-grid developers, women’s groups, community organisations, Non-government organisations. This variously results in raising finance for undertaking baseline surveys, purchasing equipment and organising regular operation and maintenance. From our point of view, we deploy models that are GIS enabled to see how many people might be affected by an energy initiative, and then determine whether this can be community led. If it can be then the work often involves identifying a champion who will lead the way.
However, the question was on how DFIs are engaging. We are funded by FCDO, however, we also engage at the highest level to ensure DFI’s are releasing appropriate finance, and ensuring that the energy initiatives are inclusive. So while ESMAP is part of our programme, as a result of providing research and evidence, Endev, funded by Germany and the Netherlands is now very strongly working on inclusive integrated energy initiatives, UNCDF, Nefco, the OPEC fund have all deployed funds inclusive of energy efficient eCooking devices, to name a few. Their deployment of finance for community energy is very much guided by strategic UK leadership.
There is also work being done at the international level for instance at the G20 Brazil, a roadmap for energy initiatives inclusive of cooking was launched and at COP28 the Global Electric Cooking Coalition (GeCCo) was launched with UK support.
Our own work has been reviewed and can be found at www.mecs.org.uk. This is part of the larger Ayrton Fund. The reviews and evidence of our programme can be found at (devtracker). We provide here two examples:-
Enhanced Carbon finance reaching down to the poor. Carbon finance has been the subject of scandals with both academics and journalists citing that a lot of groups have overclaimed their impact. Prior to these exposes, UK research identified and created a new method for calculating the amount of carbon saved, by measuring the actual use of the energy efficient eCooking appliance (which was used as an alternative to biomass-based cooking). The method entered the voluntary carbon offset market via Gold Standard and has since been incorporated into VERRA certification and a new CLEAR method. It is highly praised by both rating agencies and the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market. It is now being used in Article 6 carbon offsets endorsed by the Paris Agreement processes and certified by UNFCCC. Utilising this method in Malawi shows that over the next 6 years approximately 100,000 households will save 50% of their monthly cooking fuel costs compared to their previous use of charcoal, they will be able to purchase the equipment worth over $100 for $15, with the supplier being paid the balance by the carbon finance, the Malawi government will get a connection fee for each, the European industries paying for this can claim to offset their carbon, and the European government can claim the carbon as part of their NDC under Article 6.2 rules. Indeed, there is another $5m that will reach down to the Malawian consumer in the form of payments through mobile money. While the UK is not leading this arrangement, UK ODA spent on carbon measurement mechanisms underpins the commercial project and has enhanced access to clean, affordable and inclusive energy systems.
Another example where UK finance has enabled a larger private and public sector response, is with BURN manufacturing. They are established purveyors of improved biomass cookstoves, but catching the idea of eCooking as a strategic use of electricity networks, they have started local assembly of eCookers in Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania, manufacture of the cookware in each country, and developed, incorporated and utilised Pay as You Go technology to roll out more than 10,000 stoves from a standing start – enabled by a 40% grant for costs from the UK. This has enabled them to develop a $10m green bond with the help of UK ODA technical assistance (FSD), bid into other impact results based schemes, and reach into schools and small businesses (enhancing profitability by reducing fuel costs and increasing daily production). They also use our new carbon methodology.
Decentralised systems by definition are at the edges of conventional grid based modern energy. The core costs are often a form of ‘customer acquisition’. While the equipment decreases in cost dramatically over the last ten years and certainly energy storage is projected to continue to decrease since it is being used in the transport sector (there will be increasingly second life batteries, not good enough for a high performing vehicle but rehabilitated they will be good enough for inclusive energy systems (lights, tv, cooling and eCooking etc).
But while the equipment decreases in cost, the travel to remote places, and the time required to engage the community, remains high. If the private sector wishes to reach off-grid communities profitably those costs have to be brought into the development budget. At a recent Power for All webinar on utilities 2.0 where they installed a mini-grid in Uganda, and then when the grid reached that area they interconnected it (to strengthen the margins of the national grid), the connection costs in those remote areas were cited at $2000 per household. In contrast the Malawian use of stand alone solar systems for eCooking is $300 for the equipment. They are able to charge consumers this amount because of philanthropy that covers the mobilisation of the women’s groups that sell the kit, the training and technical support. If the private sector had to cover customer acquisition costs, the total system cost would likely double (although still be cheaper than a grid connection in a remote area).
One of the challenges in deployment of decentralised energy systems is that the remote communities barely have a cash economy, and so any repayments or ongoing electricity charge is often subject to defaults. One way of overcoming this is to ensure the system can include cooking and productive use, the former creates a steady demand pivoting the existing expenditure and time use into a convenient clean cooking (potentially reducing costs of medicines to respond to respiratory symptoms, and potentially enhancing the local environment by not cutting trees), and productive use by creating income (although many productive uses in rural areas are seasonal and sometimes do not fully utilise the equipment provided).
It may be important to remember that ‘off-grid’ or decentralised doesn’t necessarily mean remote rural. The bald division between grid and off-grid is breaking down. E.g. grid consumers as prosumers with their own generation (India, South Africa), development of larger-scale metro grids (DRC) and ARC Power's grid-tied MG extension programme in Rwanda.
Even for systems that are lower cost across the life cycle than traditional approaches, there is often a barrier in terms of upfront cost. That is an obvious issue where households or communities are paying for systems themselves and requires approaches to microfinance such as paygo. But the issue also affects private sector, with cashflow challenges for equipment purchase and ahead of carbon revenues. Concessional loans are one important element but so is patient capital; we observe greater demand for the latter than currently served.
Our own projects are guided by a gender framework, a disability framework and we work with informal settlements and the displaced.
As well as our key performance indicators that try to track the number of people reached (and keep in mind we are an action research programme not an ‘implementing’ programme), we also consider how many government policies have been influenced, the private sector finance leveraged, and the public sector leveraged. Regarding people reached it is important that we don’t double count, and so we count only a portion of the total beneficiaries depending on our input compared to others.
Of particular interest to us, FCDO, and the framing of your question, are the climate change emissions saved, the local environment, the health of the people and the economic gains. For the climate change emissions saved, we work closely with World Health Organisation who have developed the BARHAP tool, and we are intimately involved with the development and certification of both voluntary and Article 6 carbon finance. We undertake baseline measurements and measure the changes, so we (and UK Aid) can be increasingly confident of the value of the carbon emissions saved.
On the other hand changes in health take a lot longer to occur, particularly because of the background air pollution and the need to transition whole communities before the user of the improved technology is not affected by their neighbours old technology. Improvements in air pollution monitoring are allowing improved measurement and we are on the way to being able to define value for money more clearly. The BARHAP also models saving in DALYs, and that also can feed into value for money assessments.
While economic benefits are easier to measure (through surveys and ethnographic studies) the social benefits such as time saved, reduction of violence, improvements to education are much more difficult. We have recently embarked on a scaled provision of eCooking for schools, and we hope that our data monitoring will be able to show the value to the educational environment that a school not filled with smoke adds to the children’s educational experience.
Aid for community-led energy. Written Evidence. S Batchelor OBE
on behalf the FCDO funded Modern Energy Cooking Service Programme Page 7