- Date
- 9th November 2026
- Categories
- Electric Cooking, Electrification
By Dr. Simon Batchelor OBE (Gamos Ltd. / Loughborough University).
COP31 has started, and our Prof. Ed Brown chaired a session at the UN SDG Pavilion (9th November). The “From Access to Outcomes: What the eCooking Transition Means for the Post-2030 Development Agenda and Next-Generation Energy Access” talk and other talks from that Pavilion are livestreamed here.
Electric cooking is gaining attention as part of the clean cooking transition—but the meeting’s message was clear: appliances alone are not enough. Progress depends on planning for reliable power, affordability, sustained use and the needs of households.
The case for electric cooking is becoming harder to ignore. At the Global Electric Cooking Strategies meeting, speakers described a rapidly developing opportunity: combine clean cooking and electrification planning, then make sure electricity can reliably and affordably meet people’s needs in the kitchen.
The ambition is significant. The World Bank’s Demetrios Papathanasiou, Global Head of Energy, argued that coordinated policy and investment could help deliver clean cooking to a further 500 million people by 2035. But he also stressed the scale of the electricity challenge. If millions of households adopt electric cooking, the additional demand could reach megawatts or gigawatts. That makes power generation, networks and household affordability central to the discussion, not issues to address after appliances have been distributed.
The opportunity is broader than cooking. Investments in electricity systems can support many uses, from transport to digital technologies, while renewable energy and battery costs continue to fall. Yet the speakers were not presenting electric cooking as a silver bullet. Its potential depends on the local energy system, the food people prepare and whether households can afford both the appliance and the electricity to use it.
Put cooking into energy plans
A recurring lesson was that clean cooking and electrification should not be planned in isolation. Lanre Shasore Senior Advisor, Africa, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) described work to integrate clean cooking into national electrification plans and energy compacts, including through Mission 300 with the World Bank and African Development Bank. The aim is to make cooking demand visible in decisions about generation, networks and investment.
That planning needs to look beyond connections. Riad Medded, Head of Decarbonisation and Sustainable Development, of UNDP called for countries to map where households live, how they cook and whether existing grids or mini-grids can serve their needs. Planning should also account for appliances, wiring, tariffs and the times when people cook. An electric connection does not automatically mean a household can cook with electricity.
The discussion also highlighted the importance of appliance efficiency. Riad cited cooking trials in which electric pressure cookers used around 44% less electricity than conventional electric cooking. Kağan Kurtkaya from appliance manufacturer Beko added that minimum energy performance standards could help bring down running costs and ease pressure on power systems. These points reinforce the value of designing programmes around the cost of preparing actual meals, rather than treating the appliance purchase as the whole intervention.
Affordability means more than a low tariff
Several speakers drew attention to the combined cost of the appliance and the energy it consumes. Even where electricity is available, households may be unable to meet the upfront cost of a cooker. On the other hand, a higher electricity tariff does not necessarily make electric cooking uneconomic compared with continued biomass use; the relevant comparison is what it costs a household to prepare food using the options available to them.
TANESCO’s experience in Tanzania offers a practical example. Irene Stanley Gowelle, AG Director of Communications and Customer Experience, TANESCO, Tanzania, described an on-bill financing programme that lets customers pay for appliances through electricity purchases. By September, nearly 2000 households had received appliances through the scheme; 25% had already completed payments, while many others were still paying. TANESCO has moved beyond the pilot and is working with local suppliers to expand the approach, with the ambition of more than 1 million by 2032.
The experience points to several conditions for success: clear customer engagement, working meters, reliable service, quality appliances and after-sales support. Awareness campaigns can help address concerns about whether electric appliances suit local cooking practices. The approach is not simply to provide equipment, but to support continued, meaningful use.
Build programmes around local realities
Ethiopia’s presentation from Tagay Hamza Mehamed, Senior Climate Change Expert, Ministry of Water and Energy, Government of Ethiopia, underscored why a portfolio of solutions matters. The country’s roadmap includes electric cooking alongside advanced biomass, biogas and solar cooking. Its presenter described low clean cooking access, the pressure biomass use places on forests, and the time burden that fuel collection and cooking can place on women and girls. The roadmap’s stated investment requirement was US$3.38 billion, spanning technology, infrastructure, institutional capacity and private-sector development. A recent MECS blog shows how such investment can gain a better return with the inclusion of eCooking.
The lesson is to match technologies and support to local infrastructure, affordability and cooking practices. Electricity access is necessary for electric cooking, but reliability, awareness, consumer finance and supply chains also shape adoption. UNDP’s examples, from testing tariff and business models with households in Kenya to plans for induction cooking in schools in Nepal, show how programmes can be tailored to different settings and users.
Measure use and outcomes, not just access
The meeting’s second panel, moderated by Vivien Foster of Imperial College London turned to what should be measured after 2030. Ed Brown argued that current SDG 7 indicators can obscure important differences: a household connection is not the same as reliable, affordable electricity for useful activities, and owning a stove is not proof that it is used regularly. Rashid Ali Abdallah of AFREC similarly called for more detail on reliability, quality, affordability, usage and the wider role of energy in public services and productive activity.
Better data is essential, but existing surveys are partial and difficult to repeat at scale. Speakers called for stronger national data systems and institutional capacity, while identifying new tools, including AI, as areas to explore. The test for any future framework will be whether it is both informative and practical to use across countries.
The meeting’s overall message was pragmatic: electric cooking can make a meaningful contribution to clean cooking goals, but progress requires joined-up planning, efficient appliances, viable finance, trusted local delivery and measurement of sustained use. The work now is to turn those principles into funded programmes and to keep learning from what households and utilities experience in practice.
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Featured image: Lanre Shasore, Senior Adviser for Sustainable Energy for All, speaks during the session ‘From Access to Outcomes: What the eCooking Transition Means for the Post-2030 Development Agenda and Next-Generation Energy Access’, held in the SDG Pavilion at COP31 (photo credit: Ayse Demir).
AI disclaimer: Transcript and summary by AI, edited by S Batchelor.