New publication

The paper presents a new model for comparing cooking solutions and its key output metric: the 'levelized cost of cooking a meal' (LCCM). The model is applied to the case of the Nyeri County in Kenya. Results show how an increased energy access with improved firewood and charcoal cook stoves could reduce both household's LCCMs and the total costs compared to traditional firewood cooking over the modelling period. On the other hand, switching to cleaner cooking solutions, such as LPG- and electricity, would result in higher costs for the end-user highlighting that this transition is not straightforward. The paper also contextualizes the results into the wider socio-economic context. It finds that a trade-off is present between minimizing costs for households and meeting household priorities, thus maximizing the potential benefits of clean cooking without dismissing the use of biomass altogether.

The publication is available here .