New MECS challenge fund ‘Cooking on Mini-Grids' (COSMO) to be launched

The Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) challenge fund provides research funding to stimulate innovations in modern energy cooking technology and systems whilst supporting the advancement of cooking energy products, processes, and services in low-income countries that are appropriate and acceptable to users.

The COSMO (Cooking on Mini-Grids Competition) challenge fund competition enables the MECS programme, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) and delivered by Loughborough University, to address key barriers to electric cooking uptake on mini-grids with the aim to strengthen the utilization of mini-grids for electric cooking.

The competition is open for applications from the 14th September 2022 from both developers and managers of mini-grids, with the aim of designing and modelling mini-grid projects which may be chosen to roll out to communities for testing.

Pre-register for challenge fund updates.