(2021) Énergie solaire pour l'accès à l'électricité et la cuisine électrique en Haïti
Resume — Ce rapport explore le potentiel de la cuisine électrique en Haïti rural en déployant des autocuiseurs électriques et des plaques à induction dans des foyers connectés à un micro-réseau solaire photovoltaïque communautaire et des foyers hors réseau. Le projet pilote a mis en évidence la valeur de la cuisine électrique pour les communautés locales et les opérateurs de micro-réseaux.
Constats Cles
- La cuisine électrique réduit le temps de cuisson, en particulier pour les aliments de base.
- La cuisine électrique augmente les charges du réseau et l'utilisation du générateur.
- Les participants ont constaté divers avantages de la cuisine électrique, en particulier le temps gagné.
- Les économies financières sur les dépenses de charbon de bois peuvent être importantes.
- L'accès à l'énergie de base est un avantage essentiel fourni par les systèmes hors réseau.
Description Complete
Cette étude explore le potentiel de la cuisine électrique en Haïti rural en déployant des autocuiseurs électriques et des plaques à induction avec des compteurs intelligents intégrés dans 20 foyers connectés à un micro-réseau solaire photovoltaïque communautaire ainsi que des cuisinières et des plaques de cuisson alimentées par des systèmes solaires + batteries autonomes dans 8 foyers hors réseau. Dans l'ensemble, le projet pilote a mis en évidence la valeur de la cuisine électrique pour les communautés locales et les opérateurs de micro-réseaux. Les principaux résultats indiquent que la cuisine électrique dans ce contexte est un catalyseur pour l'amélioration de la qualité de vie des communautés, une voie essentielle pour l'amélioration du service pour les opérateurs de micro-réseaux, et peut être étendue grâce à un financement basé sur les résultats et d'autres incitations intelligentes.
Texte Integral du Document
Texte extrait du document original pour l'indexation.
2021
SOLAR POWER FOR ELECTRICITY ACCESS AND
ELECTRIC COOKING IN HAITI
Kwison Elektrik
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Authors
Andy Bilich, Wendy Sanassee, Allison Archambault, Adam Eberwein, Jean Thaylord
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their help in implementing the
research study and scoping, developing, editing, and reviewing this report: Doug Danley,
Madison Sturgess, Teresa Danley, Joey Dunn, Jon Leary, Jane Long, Simon Batchelor
Funding
Funding for this project generously provided by a research grant funded by Loughborough
University (via the Modern Energy Cooking Services Initiative under UKAID).
Pictures
All pictures used in this report are property of EarthSpark International. Photo credits: Wendy
Sanassee
EarthSpark International
EarthSpark International builds energy-related business models that expand opportunity for
people living in hard-to-reach places. We focus first on what can work in Haiti. Where there is no
incumbent infrastructure, there is an opportunity to build energy systems that use today's
technologies, business models, and community participation to deliver clean, affordable, reliable
electricity. This is our way of working towards climate justice and Sustainable Energy for All.
©2021 EarthSpark International
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Table of Contents
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................. 5
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................. 6
EarthSpark International ........................................................................................................................... 7
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................... 9
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 11
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 11
Study Overview ................................................................................................................................... 11
Report Organization ............................................................................................................................ 12
Background ............................................................................................................................................... 14
Energy Access and Access to Clean Cooking .................................................................................. 14
Traditional Cooking Impacts .............................................................................................................. 15
Historical Approaches to Clean Cooking ......................................................................................... 18
Electric Cooking Research .................................................................................................................. 20
Electric Cooking ....................................................................................................................................... 20
Electric Cooking and Microgrids ....................................................................................................... 23
Challenges for Electric Cooking ......................................................................................................... 25
Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 27
Methodology and Data ........................................................................................................................... 27
Participants ........................................................................................................................................... 27
Training ................................................................................................................................................. 29
Electric Cooking Technology and Installations ............................................................................... 30
Data Sources ......................................................................................................................................... 31
Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 33
Results ........................................................................................................................................................ 33
Baseline Cooking Fuels ....................................................................................................................... 33
Participant and Menu Profiles............................................................................................................ 35
Electric Cooking and Customer Consumption ................................................................................ 37
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Microgrid Operations and Power Quality ....................................................................................... 42
Customer Surveys ................................................................................................................................ 44
Charcoal Costs and Indicative Willingness to Pay .......................................................................... 46
Key Takeaways ..................................................................................................................................... 50
Discussion ................................................................................................................................................. 52
Community Impacts - Catalyst for Improved Quality of Life ....................................................... 52
Impacts for Microgrid Models and Operators – Critical Pathway for Improved Service ......... 55
Social Inclusion and Gender Impacts ................................................................................................ 58
Scaling-up Electric Cooking ............................................................................................................... 59
Future Research .................................................................................................................................... 62
Lessons Learned ....................................................................................................................................... 64
Design, Performance and Technical Issues ...................................................................................... 64
Electric Cooking Equipment ............................................................................................................... 66
User Acceptance and Uptake ............................................................................................................. 68
Data Analysis and Collection ............................................................................................................. 68
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 70
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 70
Annexes ..................................................................................................................................................... 71
Annex: References ................................................................................................................................ 71
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
List of Figures
Figure 1: Comparison of Primary Cooking Fuels by Region ............................................................. 15
Figure 2: Impacts of Traditional Cooking ............................................................................................. 16
Figure 3: Electrical Setup for “SparkStove” system ............................................................................ 30
Figure 4: Base Meal Type and Addition to Meal Frequencies ........................................................... 36
Figure 5: Average Cooking/Prepping Times by Meal Type .............................................................. 38
Figure 6: Electric Cooking Events by Device ....................................................................................... 39
Figure 7: Summary of Individual Participant Electric Cooking ........................................................ 40
Figure 8: Average Electricity Consumption per Customer by Device ............................................. 41
Figure 9: Daily Total Microgrid Electricity Consumption in October .............................................. 42
Figure 10: Hourly Average Microgrid Electricity Consumption ...................................................... 43
Figure 11: Advantages and Disadvantages of Electric Cooking ....................................................... 45
Figure 12: Percentage Savings on Charcoal Expenditures ................................................................. 47
Figure 13: Use of Savings from Electric Cooking ................................................................................ 48
Figure 14: Indicative Willingness to Pay for Electric Cooking .......................................................... 49
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Abbreviations
EP Enèji Pwòp
EPC Electric pressure cooker
ES EarthSpark
EUR Euros
HTG Haitian Gourde
KW Kilowatts
KWH Kilowatt hours
LIDC Low-Income Developing Country
MECS Modern Energy Cooking Services
SIDS Small Island Developing States
SM SparkMeter
USD US Dollar
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
EarthSpark International
EarthSpark International is a non-profit headquartered in Washington DC that builds business
models to solve energy poverty. We focus on what can work in Haiti while building best practices
relevant around the world. EarthSpark has been working on energy access in rural Haiti since
2009:
• 2009-12: Built network of 100 independent retailers for small-scale solar + cookstoves
• 2012: Launched Haiti’s first pre-pay microgrid in, expanded to a town-sized solar smart
grid for ~2000 people in 2015.
• 2015: Established microgrid landscape Haiti through national microgrid market study in
partnership with Enèji Pwòp
• 2019: Secured the first ever microgrid operating license from Haiti’s new energy
regulator to launch a second smart solar microgrid; began pre-development for two
additional grids.
• 2020: Secured funding commitment from Green Climate Fund towards microgrid
expansion blended finance project in Haiti.
During its operations, EarthSpark has been constantly innovating and developing real-world
solutions to on the ground problems for communities and energy access. So far, EarthSpark has
incubated and spun off 3 companies:
• Enèji Pwòp is a Haitian microgrid operations company that currently operates two
microgrids in Les Anglais and Tiburon. Learn more at https://www.enejipwop.com/
• SparkMeter provides microgrid operators with smart metering and billing services.
SparkMeter, developed initially for EarthSpark’s microgrid work in Haiti, is now the
leading global supplier of smart metering services for energy access microgrid operators
around the world. Learn more at https://www.sparkmeter.io/
• Participant Power is a microgrid development company that leverages blended
financing to support new microgrid projects.
Learn more about EarthSpark’s work at http://www.earthsparkinternational.org/.
Partners
SUNSPOT – SUNSPOT™ is a self-contained off-grid solar electric power system.
The SUNSPOT™ solar electric cooking system provides a clean, efficient and cost-effective
alternative to wood or charcoal. Solar electric cooking is made possible by three recent trends –
the dramatic fall in the price of solar panels for utility projects, the availability of low cost,
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
highly efficient induction cookstoves and the introduction of Pay-As-You-Go financing in rural
communities. Learn more at www.sunspotpv.com.
Modern Electric Cooking Services (MECS) – Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) is a
five-year programme funded by UK Aid (DFID) in partnership with Loughborough University.
The intended outcome is a market-ready range of innovations (technology and business
models) which lead to improved choice of affordable and reliable modern energy cooking
services for consumers. We will seek to have the MECS principles adopted in the SDG 7.1 global
tracking framework and hope that participating countries will incorporate modern energy
cooking services in energy policies and planning. Learn more at mecs.org.uk.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Executive Summary
Around the world, people are realizing that fire-based cooking is neither good for the cooker nor
for the climate. Over 2.8 billion people are still relying on charcoal, biomass or kerosene to cook.
Traditional cooking fuels are often expensive, bad for people’s health, and bad for the
environment. The impacts are particularly outsized for women in rural communities.
Global “clean cooking” efforts have focused on improved cookstoves, biomass briquettes, and
expansion of LPG. However, clean cooking has lagged significantly compared to the need, and
the solutions have often not fully solved the problems. Recent initiatives focusing on electric
cooking are a welcome shift. For too long access to electricity and access to improved cooking
technology have been siloed. Combining the two issues has the potential to more effectively
meet people’s basic needs while boosting the business model for solar-powered electricity
systems in remote communities.
This study explores the potential of electric cooking in rural Haiti by deploying electric pressure
cookers and induction stoves with integrated smart meters in 20 households connected to a
community scale solar PV microgrid as well as cookers and stoves supported by stand-alone
solar+battery systems in 8 off-grid households. Overall, the pilot project has showcased the
value of electric cooking for both local communities and microgrid operators. Key findings
indicate that electric cooking in this context is a:
• Catalyst for improved quality of life for communities – Participants’ primary
observation was the time savings and convenience of electric cooking compared to
traditional fuels. Indicative willingness to pay values for most participants met or
exceeded existing microgrid tariffs which highlights the opportunity for electric cooking
to support improved livelihoods for vulnerable households. The electric cooking
deployments also significantly reduce the risk of household air pollution.
• Critical pathway for improved service for microgrid operators – Electric cooking
requires significantly more energy than what most “energy access” microgrids have
been designed to deliver. This is both a challenge and an enormous opportunity for
microgrid developers. The significant new revenue stream may be an incentive to build
more robust infrastructure which, in turn, delivers additional benefits to the community
and operator. Electric cooking also reduces GHG emissions from baseline fuels (a key
metric for microgrid regulators and investors) and further allows for greater utilization
of installed solar as cooking profiles in Haiti align with solar production.
• Scaling-up electric cooking – Results-based financing and other smart incentives could
specifically connect clean cooking to other sustainable development goals, especially
food security, energy access, poverty alleviation, and health. This deliberate connection
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
could help to catalyze and coordinate investments and service delivery to target
communities.
Overall, the project is a first-step working to prove the viability, effectiveness, and attractiveness
of electric cooking technologies powered by robust, reliable solar + storage energy systems
supporting critical socioeconomic development outcomes in Haiti. The hope is that this will help
to demonstrate key demand for the solution and create actionable evidence for how to effectively
design business models and frameworks to better support future electric cooking rollouts.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Introduction
From steaming fluffy rice with black bean
sauce to fried plantains and plenty of
tropical fruit to vibrant vegetable, meat, and
fish stews, the intoxicating aromas of Haiti’s
cooking provide a conduit to its culture. In
Haiti, food brings families and communities
together.
While Haiti's cuisine is both nourishing and
flavourful, the reliance on charcoal and
other woodfuels presents serious risks to
household health and opportunity for its
communities, particularly women and
young children. By empowering
communities with electric clean cooking
powered by reliable electricity from
EarthSpark’s existing solar microgrids
operations in Haiti, there is enormous
potential to curb the negative health,
socioeconomic, and environmental impacts
of status quo cooking fuels while preserving
the rich culinary tradition that underpins
Haitian society.
Study Overview
The present study explores the potential for
electric cooking powered by reliable
community-scale solar PV microgrids to
provide an effective alternative to
traditional cooking methods for rural
communities in Haiti. The study is part of a
broad research grant funded by
Loughborough University (via the Modern
Energy Cooking Services Initiative under
UKAID) and implemented by EarthSpark
International.
Leveraging detailed smart meter
consumption data and energy/food journals
from 28 households equipped with electric
pressure cookers and electric induction
stoves, this project builds a baseline for
Introduction
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
electric cooking in Haiti and beyond, by
establishing a knowledge base for electric
cooking awareness building, customer
preferences (especially for cooking
times/recipe limitations/taste), operating
costs and impact on microgrid operations,
key challenges and barriers, and best
practices/lessons learned for electric
cooking in rural Haiti.
Key research questions for the study
include, but are not limited to:
• What is the baseline situation for
traditional cooking in rural Haiti?
• Can electric cooking devices support
Haitian cooking both in terms of
physical capability, but also for
meeting the expectations and
preferences of local communities?
• How can electric cooking devices be
deployed effectively in a microgrid
context to support community
cooking needs without
compromising other microgrid
electricity service?
• How can electric cooking enable
time and cost savings and reduction
of harmful indoor air pollution for
households, particularly women?
• What tariff design and other
financing mechanisms are needed to
support affordability and uptake of
electric cooking solutions?
• What actions need to be taken to
support an enabling environment
for clean electric cooking in Haiti
and beyond?
Report Organization
The report is organized into the following
sections:
Section 1: Background – Background
information and context on energy access
and access to clean cooking fuels, impacts of
traditional cooking fuels, and traditional
approaches to clean cooking for developing
communities with an emphasis on Haiti.
Section 2: Electric Cooking – An overview
of electric cooking research in developing
communities, particularly highlighting key
challenges to overcome and applications for
microgrid contexts.
Section 3: Methodology and Data – Study
methodology, technology selection,
participant selection, and data
sources/analysis approach for the electric
cooking study.
Section 4: Results and Analysis – Results
and analysis including consumer
preferences, compatibility of Haitian meals
with electric cooking, electric cooking
consumption profiles, cost considerations,
and impact on microgrid operations
Section 5: Discussion – Implications of the
research for broader electric cooking in
Haiti and beyond including a discussion of
community impacts, impacts on microgrid
models and operators, social inclusion,
finances and affordability, development of
an enabling environment for electric clean
cooking, and key future research steps.
Section 6: Challenges and Lessons Learned
– A discussion of key challenges during the
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
study and important lessons learned that
can be leveraged in future research.
Section 7: Conclusion – Discussion of the
overall impact of the study and the critical
next steps.
Section 8: Annexes – Supporting
information including refer ences,
participant surveys and energy diaries, etc.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Energy Access and Access to
Clean Cooking
An estimated 789 million people worldwide
lacked access to electricity in 2018 (IRENA,
2020). In Haiti, only 30% of the population
(5-10% in rural areas) has access to
electricity (World Bank Scaling Renewable
Energy Program, 2015). While progress has
been seen for electricity access with the
population gaining access outpacing
population growth, access to clean fuels and
technologies for cooking remains a critical
obstacle to achieving the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7)
which aims to, ensure universal access to
affordable, reliable and modern energy
1
In rural areas with large charcoal production operations,
there is a lot higher proportion of charcoal used for cooking.
services by 2030 (International Energy
Agency, 2019).
In 2018, over 2.8 billion people lived without
access to clean cooking fuels and
technologies, relying instead on woodfuels,
charcoal, kerosene, and other solid biomass
fuels as their primary cooking fuel. The
most recent projections from the
International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests
that the global community will fall far short
of the 2030 universal access target with over
2.3 billion people still without access to
clean cooking by 2030 and 1.8 billion in 2040
(International Energy Agency, 2019).
In Haiti, an estimated 97.3% of rural
households depend primarily on solid fuels
for household cooking (74.7% wood, 22.5%
charcoal, 0.1% lignite
1
) and the vast majority
Background
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
of cooking is done indoors (63%) and on
inefficient traditional unvented and
unimproved cookstoves or over open
flames (Institut Haïtien de l’Enfance and
IFC, 2018) (Figure 1).
Traditional Cooking Impacts
Combustion of traditional cooking fuels like
biomass and kerosene in inefficient
cookstoves or over open flames results in
high levels of household air pollution
(HAP) and exposure to health-damaging
pollutants, especially for women and young
children (World Health Organization, 2014)
(Clean Cooking Alliance, 2017).
This life-long exposure, including through
critical periods of maternity and child
development, can have serious
consequences for health (World Health
Organization, 2014).
The World Health
Organization estimates that almost 3.8
million people die each year from illnesses
like pneumonia, stroke, ischaemic heart
disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD) and lung cancer that are
attributable to HAP from the use of
kerosene and biomass fuels for cooking
(World Health Organization, 2018). In
Haiti, the World Health Organization
estimates that there were over 11,000 deaths
Figure 1: Comparison of Primary Cooking Fuels by Region
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
attributable or partially attributable to HAP
in 2016 including over 2,000 children under
5 (World Health Organization, 2016).
In addition to the elevated HAP risks,
traditional cooking also creates significant
socioeconomic challenges, particularly for
women in rural communities. On average
women can spend 4-6 hours per day on
collecting and preparing fuel for cooking
and for cooking activities themselves. This
can have significant impacts on health,
education, income opportunities, and
simply leisure time for women which serves
to sustain and exacerbate gender inequality
in developing communities (Practical
Action Consulting, 2019). Further, the lost
economic potential from unpaid work
hours collecting fuel for women amounts to
Figure 2: Impacts of Traditional Cooking
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
an estimated $12 trillion annually
(McKinsey Global Institute, 2015). Haitian
women for example spend twice as much
time on domestic tasks as men and can
spend up to five hours per day collecting
firewood, collecting water, and cooking
(Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves,
2017).
Socioeconomic impacts are also seen from
fuel expenditures which can represent a
significant portion of household income and
limit available income for other necessary
expenditures like education and food
(World Bank and, 2014) (Practical Action
Consulting, 2019). In 2015, with a traditional
stove and traditional wood charcoal, the
average household in Haiti spent an
estimated 58-67 htg/day on fuel (Global
Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, 2017) and
approximately 10% of their annual income
on fuel (Clean Cooking Alliance, 2017). This
is compounded by the use of inefficient
stoves. Additional evidence from
EarthSpark’s microgrid planning surveys
highlights that in more remote rural areas in
Southern Haiti nearly 100% of households
utilize wood or charcoal for cooking and
that some households can spend upwards
of 1000 htg every week for cooking fuels.
In addition to the human health, gender,
and socioeconomic impacts, utilizing wood,
charcoal, and other solid fuels can
contribute to other externalities including
forest degradation, biodiversity loss, soil
degradation and climate change (SEI and
HIVOS, 2020). In fact, cooking and heating
fuels like wood, agriculture waste, and
charcoal are estimated to contribute almost
25% of global black carbon emissions (Bond,
et al., 2013) and non-renewable woodfuels
contribute an estimated 1.9-2.3% of
greenhouse gas emissions annually.
Haiti still has over 75% of its primary energy
supply from biomass and woodfuels
(International Energy Agency, 2018) and
does experience environmental degradation
from charcoal and woodfuel production,
Haitian woman with a traditional stove
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
particularly in certain local communities. In
Haiti these impacts may be less pronounced
than previously estimated. A recent report
on the charcoal industry in Haiti highlights
that Haiti’s tree cover is significantly higher
than previously estimated and while there
are localized impacts from charcoal
production, the decentralization of charcoal
production in Haiti has led to forest
recovery in traditional production areas.
Further, there are indications from
production trends that indicates high
utilization of renewable biomass for
charcoal production in Haiti (World Bank,
2018) (Figure 2). However, there is still
localized environmental degradation in
many areas.
Historical Approaches to Clean
Cooking
Globally efforts towards the expansion of
clean cooking alternatives have focused on
improved cookstoves, biomass briquettes,
and expansion of LPG. However, clean
cooking has lagged significantly compared
to needed action to meet SDG7. As above,
the IEA’s 2019 update for SDG Outlook
estimates that the current pathway for
access to clean fuels for cooking will leave
over 2.3 billion people without access in
2030 and over 1.8 billion in 2040
(International Energy Agency, 2019).
Further, while definitely an improvement in
emissions over the status quo fuels, LPG
and ICS stoves including kerosene all utilize
fossil fuels which can still cause localized
health impacts while also contributing
greenhouse gas emissions which drive
global climate change.
In Haiti there have been several efforts
working to expand the use of ICS and LPG,
most notably USAID/Chemonics’ Improved
Cooking Technology Program and the
Clean Cookstove Alliance’s Action Plan for
Haiti. The ICTP project focused on
expansion of improved biomass cookstoves
and LPG for urban food providers and
households in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
The project had mixed results with 6% of
households in the program area adopting
improved cookstoves, and 44% of
Haitian woman cooking over traditional stove
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
orphanages, 12% of schools, and 22% of
street food vendors adopting LPG
(USAID/Chemonics, 2015).
The Action Plan and associated efforts have
also focused on improving the production
and availability of efficient cookstoves,
improving the efficiency of charcoal
production, and creating an enabling
environment for market growth (Global
Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, 2017). These
efforts have mirrored challenges faced by
other global initiatives in that deployment
and uptake of clean cooking has been slow,
especially for rural households given
cultural practices, initial capital cost for
alternatives, availability of cookstoves,
limited supply chains, and community
engagement.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Electric Cooking Research
A number of recent initiatives have now
been focusing on electric cooking as a key
competitor and opportunity for clean
cooking in developing communities. The
updated Beyond Fire Report on electric
cooking from Hivos and the World Future
Council highlighted that due to significant
decreases in both batteries and PV modules
(76% and 82%, respectively since 2010) as
well as expanding demonstrations for
customer preference and functionality,
electric cooking is rapidly becoming a viable
solution for clean cooking deployment,
particularly in mini-grid systems. The study
specifically found that electric slow cookers
and pressure cookers can enable household
cooking costs between EUR 15 and
21/month for SHS (17.65 – 24.71 USD) and
between EUR 3.56 – 9.53/month for mini-
grids (4.19 – 11.21 USD) indicating that
electric cooking is well within the range of
cost-competitiveness of other cooking
alternatives. Compared to the original
report, the updated study also highlighted
the key importance of appliance efficiency
for electric pressure cookers in driving unit
economics for electric cooking (SEI and
HIVOS, 2020) (Couture & Jacobs, Beyond
Fire: How to Achieve Electric Cooking,
2019) (Couture & Jacobs, 2016).
In the 2020 report “Cooking with Electricity:
A Cost Perspective”, the Energy Sector
Management Assistance Program (ESMAP)
explored five case studies for a range of
electric cooking solutions in different
contexts (urban, national grid in Kenya;
urban, national grid in Zambia; rural micro-
hydro mini-grid in Myanmar; rural, solar
hybrid mini-grid in Tanzania; and rural, off-
grid SHS in Kenya). Overall, the report
highlighted that eCooking on national grids
Electric Cooking
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
or mini-/micro-hydropower is already cost-
effective for many people today and that by
2025, the costs of cooking with AC
appliances connected to solar hybrid mini-
grids ($8–$25/month) and with DC
appliances powered by solar home systems
($11–$24/month) become competitive
(ESMAP, 2020).
One of the largest research efforts for
electric clean cooking is the Modern Electric
Cooking Services (MECS) Programme
which has developed a long series of electric
cooking research working to build a strong
evidence base of deployment ready
technologies and markets for clean cooking
and support a shift in business-as-usual
thinking for clean cooking (Batchelor S. ,
Brown, Scott, & Leary, 2019). The research
started with the “eCook” and “PV Cook”
concepts which basically couple SHS and/or
battery chargers with electric cooking
devices (initially electric hot plates) for
applications in developing communities
(Brown & Leary, 2015) (Brown, Leary,
Davies, Batchelor, & Scott, 2017).
A 2018 multi-criteria decision analysis for
eCook/PV Cook explored a wide variety of
factors expected to affect the uptake and
potential impact of eCook. These factors
included infrastructure (i.e. how easy it is to
obtain components in country and in
communities; energy access rates, etc.),
culture (i.e. what do people cook and how),
human (i.e. availability of local expertise,
energy policy, empowerment of women),
physical (i.e. climate conditions,
deforestation, etc.), and economics (i.e.
financing options, cost of alternatives/status
quo). The analysis highlighted that there are
significant sizeable markets (millions of
potential users) where the costs of electric
cooking applications are expected to be
highly competitive against existing
commercialised polluting fuels. Specifically,
in countries with charcoal prices above
1.35USD/kg, kerosene prices below
4.34USD/l or LPG prices below 6.07USD/kg,
in 2020 it will be cheaper to use PV-eCook
than these fuels under all scenarios.
Countries in between these ranges will be
cheaper under some scenarios and more
Haitian woman with “SparkStove” system
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
expensive under others, suggesting that
some markets are likely to emerge within
each country. Haiti was one country where
the eCook concept was seen to be quite
viable (Batchelor S. , et al., 2018).
MECS has followed up on this initial
research with focused country level
research on electric cooking particularly
electric pressure cookers in a number of
different applications and countries.
A first study of urban applications of
electric cooking in Kenya highlighted that in
urban contexts with relatively high
traditional fuel prices and moderate
electricity prices, both direct AC and
battery-supported eCooking can already
offer considerable cost savings and will
become more competitive as polluting fuel
prices continue to increase over time.
Another off-grid study in Kenya
highlighted that charcoal prices already
make solar electric cooking cost effective
and that the penetration of SHS and PAYG
solar in communities will enable solar
cooking to be cost comparable to investing
in LPG. In Zambia, MECS modelling has
shown that electricity is already by far the
cheapest option and LPG is not competitive
at all. Battery-supported cooking is already
the cheapest way to mitigate issues with
load-shedding and blackouts in more urban
environments. A Tanzania case study
highlights the effectiveness of electric
cooking supporting small cooking
enterprises despite high mini-grid tariffs for
electricity (Leach, Leary, Scott, & Batchelor,
2019).
In a study of electric cooking design in
Cambodia, a significant majority of
participants highlighted a preference to
adopt electric cookstoves mostly due to
taste. The study also highlighted a strong
desire to control their energy consumption
patterns and understand the unit costs for
electric cooking (initial perception is that
electricity is more expensive). To explore
this, the study utilized smart meters to
support expanded customer awareness
building and behavioural shifts and found
that smart metering, and particularly
focused energy literacy for customers to
see/understand the electricity consumption
and cost patterns associated with various
common cooking exercises was a strong
supporting factor for adoption of electric
cooking alternatives (MECS, 2020).
A summary of the results from electric
pressure cooker field studies in Kenya,
Tanzania, and Zambia highlights that
electric pressure cookers are highly
desirable and that over 90% of the cultural
cooking menus can be cooked effectively on
electric pressure cookers. Despite this and
substantial energy savings over traditional
hotplates and other devices, electric
pressure cookers were only chosen 50% of
the time by participants which highlights
significant opportunity for training and
awareness building for end users (Batchelor
S. , Brown, Scott, & Leary, 2019).
Other MECS research has also included load
modelling for electric cooking devices,
technical assessments of specific cooking
devices, political economy of electric
cooking, as well as the development of
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
multiple electric pressure cooker recipe
books for different foods and geographies.
Outside of the MECS initiative, a research
study assessing the desirability of electric
pressure cookers in off-grid households in
Kenya specifically found that electric
pressure cookers are generally desirable as
they are perceived as time-saving and easy
to use in comparison with biomass cooking.
The study estimated that if electric cooking
was below roughly $14.10 per month in
costs, users would make the switch from
firewood (Access to Energy Institute, 2019).
Electric Cooking and
Microgrids
A key point from the early research on
electric cooking is that a utility business
model is seen as the most attractive for poor
households, particularly if combined with
mobile enabled payment mechanisms
because it can overcome some of the
financial barriers and risks from the new
electric cooking technologies (Brown &
Leary, 2015) (Brown, Leary, Davies,
Batchelor, & Scott, 2017). The recent
ESMAP report further supports this by
concluding “the uptake of eCooking will
depend substantially on the willingness of
the private sector— in particular solar
companies, mini-grid operators and
utilities—to adopt the technology as part of
the suite of services it offers its customers.”
Given the challenges in many rural areas for
expansion of centralized utility models,
microgrids, particularly represent a key
opportunity for energy access and electric
cooking as they can leverage critical
economies of scale and utility business
models to support electric cooking
investment for customers and the cooking
load can in turn help provide additional
revenue streams for microgrid financial
viability. This notion is further supported
by the estimation that mini-grids will be the
cheapest option for electricity access for 490
million of the 1.2 billion to be electrified by
2030 (Sustainable Energy For All, 2020).
In fact, there have been a number of studies
and projects already incorporating electric
cooking load into microgrid operations (in
Haitian woman with electric cookers
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
addition to the MECS studies previously
mentioned). A few key studies are
discussed below:
Accelerating uptake of electric cooking on
AC microgrids through business and
delivery model innovations (MECS, 2020)
The study found that customers appreciated
cooking with the electric pressure cookers
and that the cookers had a positive impact
on customer quality of life (decreased
cooking time, decreased health impacts
from smoke) with minimal impacts on
cooking costs. Electricity consumption data
from household electricity meters showed
that customer electricity consumption on
average increased by 2.6 kWh per month
(~20% increase) demonstrating an active
demand for electric cooking. The project
also highlighted the importance of in-
person hands-on training for electric
cooking for customers as well as financial
assistance (the study leveraged a loan
facility) to support households overcoming
the initial cost of the pressure cookers.
Unlocking electric cooking on Nepali
micro-hydropower mini-grids (Clements,
et al., 2020)
A 2020 study introduced electric cooking for
10 households in a micro-hydro mini grid in
Nepal and found that the transition to
electric cooking reduced firewood
collection times as well as cooking times for
participants and that participants enjoyed
cooking on the stoves due to elimination of
indoor air pollution. Participants generally
cooked two meals per day on average
consuming 0.25 kWh /day and 0.14
kWh/meal. The study also highlighted high
initial capital costs for electric cooking
technologies as well as the reliability of
electric supply as key potential barriers to
electric cooking in microgrid settings.
Enabling combined access to electricity
and clean cooking with PV microgrids:
new evidences from a high-resolution
model of cooking loads (Lombardi, Riva,
Sacchi, & Colombo, 2019)
Participant with “SparkStove” system
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
A 2019 study in Tanzania conducted an
assessment of the techno-economic
potential of a fully-renewable solar micro-
grid for electricity load and electric cooking
in community and household applications.
The study highlighted cost-competitiveness
for electric cooking particularly for
community service applicatio ns.
Specifically, the study found a range of
Levelised Cost for Cooking a Meal (LCCM)
for electric cooking ranging between 0.16
and 0.70 USD/kWh (depending on
assumptions for device penetration and fuel
stacking). which was comparable to all
other cooking options for the area. Not only
does the analysis highlight that highly-
efficient electric cooking can be cost-
competitive with all other cooking options,
but also that the profitability of electric
cooking is much higher when a cost-
optimised modern energy system
configuration is utilized.
Tecno-economic assessment of an off-grid
PV-powered community kitchen for
developing regions (Dufo-Lopez, Zubi, &
Fracastoro, 2012)
An assessment of off-grid PV+battery mini-
grid systems coupled with low demand
cooking appliances (rice cookers) for
communities in India, Indonesia,
Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria found
the levelised energy cost for electric cooking
in a microgrid setting to be around 0.03€ per
meal or less and the life cycle emissions of
the system (manufacturing, transport and
decommissioning) to be around 7 gCO2 per
meal.
Power Generation Planning of Galapagos’
Microgrid Considering Electric Vehicles
and Induction Stoves (Clairand, Arriaga,
Canizares, & Alvarez-Bel, 2019)
An analysis of integrating electric cooking
load from induction stoves under Ecuador’s
National Efficient Cooking Program into the
planned expansion of island microgrids in
the Galapagos highlighted that the
economic impacts of electric cooking load
depended on the penetration of devices and
their utilization as well as the varied
predictability of those cooking loads. The
study found electricity demand for electric
cooking to range between 0.3-0.6 kWh, 1-2
kWh, 0.8-1.6 kWh (breakfast, lunch, and
dinner respectively). The study ultimately
supported integrating electric cooking into
future microgrid developm ent and
expansion.
Challenges for Electric
Cooking
Some critical challenges that were
highlighted by a number of the studies
(Scott, Jones, & Batchelor, 2020), (Brown,
Leary, Davies, Batchelor, & Scott, 2017),
(MECS, 2020), (MECS, 2020) (Batchelor,
Khan, Scott, & Leary, 2017) (MECS, 2020)
include:
Financial Barriers: Given the applications
for poor communities, the most critical
barrier has been the cost of the electric
cooking systems both in terms of the
upfront capital, but also the time to actually
procure electric cooking components.
Further in many cases there was a
perception that the price of electricity was
higher (even where electricity is cheaper)
and in other cases the value of the time
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
spent gathering fuel in the baseline situation
isn’t always factored into household
decision-making or perception of value.
Awareness: Awareness of electric cooking
technologies and their potential
applications and benefits is very limited for
end-users, but also even for development
partners, government staff, and local
leaders. This a significant barrier for
commercialization of electric cooking
technologies.
Availability of Technology : The
bottlenecks for electric cooking equipment
(and supporting spare parts) often lie in the
supply chain and the availability of
technology in country and particularly in
community for rural areas.
Infrastructure/Electricity Availability:
There is significant uncertainty for end-
users on the availability/sufficiency of
electricity supply for cooking. For many,
mini-grids and national electricity grids
have significant load-shedding and
unpredictable cuts to electricity supply
which can interrupt cooking on electric
systems. There is also a challenge related to
weak local electricity infrastructure
(particularly for electricity connections and
wiring);
Quality and Type of Technology
Available: The size of many electric cooking
appliances available are too small for the
cooking needs of large families. Further
there tends to be varied quality levels for
electric pressure cookers and other devices
available to end-users. Overall, the research
has demonstrated that the right program
design, support, and awareness building
can overcome these challenges and that on
the whole electric cooking is an increasingly
viable and attractive option for modern
clean cooking in developing communities.
Overall, the research has demonstrated that
the right program design, support, and
awareness building can overcome these
challenges and that on the whole electric
cooking is an increasingly viable and
attractive option for modern clean cooking
in developing communities.
Overview
The study explores the potential of electric
cooking in rural communities in Haiti by
deploying electric pressure cookers and
induction stoves with integrated smart
meters in 20 households connected to a
community scale solar PV microgrid as well
as cookers and stoves supported by stand-
alone solar+battery systems (SUNSPOT™
solar electric cooking system) in 8 off-grid
households.
The study was conducted by EarthSpark
International, a non-profit based in
Washington DC that builds business
models to solve energy poverty, in
partnership with Enèji Pwòp, an EarthSpark
International spinoff that is a microgrid
operations company currently operating
two microgrids in rural Haiti. The study
was conducted in the rural community of
Les Anglais in Southwestern Haiti which is
the site of EarthSpark and Enèji Pwòp’s first
microgrid in Haiti. The microgrid itself is a
100kW solar PV hybrid microgrid serving
about 2000 people.
Participants
In total 20 on-grid households and 8 off-grid
households were selected to participate in
the electric cooking study. Participants were
selected based off of a number of criteria. All
households were encouraged to participate
through direct engagement from Enèji
Pwòp staff. Unfortunately, some of this
selection was complicated by COVID-19.
For on-grid participants, the first
requirement was that participants needed to
be existing Enèji Pwòp customers. After that
selection was based on a combination of:
Methodology and Data
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
• Proximity/Ease of Access –
Households in the downtown area
near the Enèji Pwòp store were
prioritized to ease installations as
well as the collection of surveys,
energy journals, and other
information, particularly under
constrained operating procedures
due to COVID-19
• Size of household – Given the size
limitations of the cooking devices,
selection focused on households that
had smaller cooking requirements
(i.e. number of people). In general
household size ranged from 4 to 10
people.
• Community Perception/Status – A
number of the households selected
were women who ran various food
businesses in town. Given the
perception barriers for electric
cooking it was important to work
with these stakeholders directly as
their opinion/experience could help
tailor future efforts and importantly
frame the viability of electric
cooking for the rest of the
community.
• Willingness/Ability to Participate -
To be effective, the study needed
highly motivated households that
would sustain participation and
feedback throughout the study
period. While many households
theoretically could have fit this
description, households that had a
combination of active purchasing
patterns and active interactions with
Enèji Pwòp staff and past
surveys/projects were prioritized.
• Enèji Pwòp Technicians and Grid
Ambassador – The three Enèji Pwòp
technicians and one grid
ambassador were also included as
participants (3 on-grid 1 off-grid) as
it was critical for them to be able to
understand and work with the
devices effectively so that they could
support the other participants. It
also helps to establish a measure of
trust in the systems for participants.
Haitian family with their new electric cooking installation
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Further, with COVID initially access
to customers houses was limited
initially and technicians could affect
their own installs.
For off-grid households, Enèji Pwòp
selected households in a specific
neighbourhood more isolated from the rest
of the town to simulate households that are
not likely to be connected by the microgrid.
This neighbourhood also needed to be
easily accessible by truck given the
installation requirements for the solar home
systems. The individual households in this
neighbourhood were primarily selected
based off of interviews which highlighted
specific homes that were present, smaller in
size, and not currently utilizing solar home
systems. Three off-grid households were
also selected to help relay the smart meter
communications as described further in the
technology section below.
Training
Four cooking demonstrations and four
trainings were held for the study
participants and their families between July
2020 and November 2020. The
demonstrations and trainings were
conducted by Enèji Pwòp staff either in the
Enèji Pwòp store or in community gathering
places.
The demonstration events focused on
cooking specific dishes using the pressure
cookers and/or induction stoves. The
training events specifically focused on
showing participants how to use the devices
safely and effectively to cook a variety of
different meals as well as to answer specific
Training event for electric cooking technologies
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
questions from participants and to enable
the participants to practice using the
devices. Further, trainings also included
how to shutoff the breakers for the
electricity meters for safety and for energy
conservation. Each participant household
was required to attend a training event
before they could get their device installed.
Each participant household also received a
recipe and instruction guide (see the
supporting annexes).
Electric Cooking Technology
and Installations
The study participants had two different
setups depending on whether they were
microgrid or off-grid. The microgrid
participants had a “SparkStove” system,
while the off-grid participants had a
“SUNSPOT” system. Each of the systems
were designed to support an electric
pressure cooker (Simpot) and an induction
stove. The Sparkstove system utilized
electricity from a solar PV microgrid while
the off-grid system used an individual
solar+battery setup. Both systems are
described in detail below (see the
supporting annexes). All participants
received free electricity for their electric
cooking loads to incentivize usage and
prioritize actionable data for planning
electric cooking.
SparkStove (on-grid): The SparkStove
system consists of the two different electric
cooking devices and three different smart
Participant Guidance Materials
Figure 3: Electrical Setup for “SparkStove” system
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
meters. The induction stove and the electric
pressure cooker were both connected to a
16A smart meter with circuit protection via
a circuit breaker which in turn was
connected to a breaker box and then to a
60A smart meter for the overall household
(Figure 3).
This setup was chosen to allow for
individual measurement of each cooking
device as well as the overall “non-cooking”
electricity consumption. This helped to
avoid the need for specific loa d
disaggregation which has been a challenge
for other studies. Further, the setup allowed
the cooking meters to remain active even if
the customers’ main electricity meter ran
out of credit.
Installation of devices followed best
practices, in the context of rural Haiti at the
time of installation. Any instance
necessitating alternative methods were
described to the customer during training,
to allow for ensured safe operation of the
system. Future installations will work to
return to normal installation practices.
SunSpot (off-grid): SUNSPOT™ is a self-
contained off-grid solar electric power
system. The system consists of two large
format PV modules (2 x 350 watts typical), a
2.5 kWh advanced lead carbon battery and
dedicated power and control electronics. It
is designed to supply 2 kilowatt-hours per
day, which is enough energy for a family of
4-6 to cook all meals using high efficiency
electric appliances such as induction
cooktops or electric pressure cooker, as well
as energy for LED lighting and mobile
phone charging. The SUNSPOT has been
engineered for local assembly and quick
installation. For the current project, the
SUNSPOT systems were prefabricated in
the United States and then assembled
locally by Enèji Pwòp staff in Les Anglais.
Doug Danley from S UNSPOT also
consulted on the electric cooking study
design and implementation. The
SUNSPOT™ system similarly had
individual metering of the cooking devices
and additional outlet to allow for individual
measurement of each cooking device as well
as the overall “non-cooking” electricity
consumption.
Data Sources
The study leveraged a few different tools
and technologies to collect and analyse a
variety of data as detailed below:
• Energy Diaries: Participants
recorded a variety of data in daily
energy diaries including the
number/type of meals cooked (both
baseline menu and with electric
cooking menu as discussed below),
what fuel source was used (i.e.
electricity, charcoal, etc.), how long
they spent cooking, how many
people they cooked for, and if there
were any challenges for a particular
meal (especially for electric
cooking). These diaries were then
transcribed and translated to help
establish baseline cooking practices
and supplement the smart-metering
data. Date ranges for the diaries
varied from participant to
participant, but in general included
1 month of pre-electric data and 1-3
months of data after installation.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
• Formal Participant Surveys:
Participants completed formal
surveys at the beginning and the
end of the study (about 1-2 months
apart for most participants).
Questions focused on gathering
information like cooking practices,
demographics, fuel expenditures,
perception of electric cooking,
issues with technology, etc.
• Informal Participant
Conversations: General feedback
from participants was also gathered
through informal conversations and
technician/grid ambassador visits.
• Electricity Smart Meters – As
above, all of the participants had
individual electricity smart-meters
from SparkMeter connected to their
electric pressure cookers, induction
stoves, as well as for their overall
household electricity consumption
from the microgrid or SHS. These
meters provide 15-minute interval
data on electricity consumption as
well as power quality metrics like
voltage, frequency, and uptime.
This data is automatically pushed
to the cloud.
All of the data was either gathered in
person by Enèji Pwòp staff and transcribed
or pushed directly to the cloud. Following
this, EarthSpark researchers utilized Excel
and R platforms to clean and analyse the
data.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Overview
In total 29 participants participated in the
initial electric cooking pilot (20 microgrid, 8
off-grid, and 1 R&D using the off-grid
system
2
). Between July 1, 2020 and
September 29
th
, 2020 all participants were
trained on how to safely utilize the electric
cooking technologies. Once trained,
participants received their electric cooking
installations and were able to utilize their
cooking technologies in their homes. The
present report shows electric cooking data
for each participant household from the
date interconnected to November 10
th
, 2020
giving a minimum of 42 days of observation
2
This system was deployed at the EarthSpark field office and hosted
a variety of different appliances including a small refrigerator,
blender, ice machine, electric coil stove, toaster oven, etc. Since this
for each participant. The sections below
detail the following results from the study:
• Baseline cooking fuels
• Customer Profiles and Menu
• Electric Cooking Consumption by
Customer
• Electric Cooking Events
• Impact on Microgrid Loads and
Service
• Charcoal Costs and Indicative
Willingness to Pay
Baseline Cooking Fuels
The most common cooking fuel used in
rural Haiti is charcoal. In Les Anglais, it is
sold on the roadside by regular vendors any
day of the week, and on Wednesday, at the
application was so different from the other participants, we have
included the data as raw data to help inform future analyses, but have
excluded it from the below summaries so as to not skew results.
Results
PAGE | 34
Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
big market, a lot of the charcoal producers
and retailers gather at a special spot to
market their product. Charcoal is generally
sold either by “marmit”, “tol” or “sac” for
about 50HTG, 150 HTG, and 750 HTG unit
price respectively. Due to the cost,
tediousness of preparing a charcoal fire for
cooking, and the cooking time, many
households prepare only one big meal per
day in a big cooking pot made of
aluminium, and commo nly called
“chodye”.
Only a few participants used wood, and
they are mostly off-grid or/and the
participants who have a household
member who is a cultivator and can easily
source dry wood or branches in the
mountains. Furthermore, off-grid houses
are generally in less populated areas and
dried branches could be more readily
available for fuel.
It was noted that four participants, three
microgrid and one having an off-grid set
up (including the EarthSpark R+D
application), use propane to supplement
the use of charcoal as cooking fuel. Some
of the propane users indicated mistrust in
propane stoves due to the fear of explosion
or gas leakage. Filling the propane tank for
people in Les Anglais also poses a few
challenges as this cannot be done locally
and the propane tank will have to be
transported to another town where that
Baseline Charcoal Stoves – “Chodye”
Charcoal production and distribution in Les Anglais
PAGE | 35
Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
service is available. The closest town that
can fill propane tanks is a two-hour drive
away, and the closest big city, Les Cayes,
requires a 3-hour drive. For those not
owning a vehicle, they pay a “taptap”
(pickup truck used for public transit) driver
25 HTG to transport the propane tank to a
filling station to refill it. It is also possible
that there is no propane in the closer town
and that the taptap will not travel further. In
this case, the user will have no other choice
than to use charcoal, if they do not have a
spare propane tank that is still filled.
Participant and Menu Profiles
All but one cooking participant was female.
It does not mean that male members of the
family did not use the cooking appliances,
as cooking diaries entries did indicate the
participation of male family members,
though minor, in food preparation. During
the training sessions as well, male members
and children in the households were
welcomed to attend and participate to make
the cooking appliances accessible for
everyone in the family. However, the main
cook in most households were identified as
female, except for one off-grid household
(this dynamic didn’t shift much at all
following the introduction of electric
cooking). This reinforces the social
stereotype that women are responsible for
preparing food for the family and in the
Haitian context, especially in rural settings,
household tasks are considered to be the
woman’s complementary role while the
men are out in the fields or doing other
manual jobs. However, the fact that it was
mostly women participating in the electric
cooking project also indicates that they are
the ones being the most impacted.
Survey results indicate that most of the
cooks in the households are between 36 and
55 years old (16 of 28 participants), followed
by 18–35-year-olds (7 of 28), and people 55+
years old (4 of 28). While this figure reflects
the main person who prepared food in the
house, it does not mean that age groups
outside of this range did not utilise the
electric cooking appliances. Energy diaries
entries have shown that children as young
as 9 and elderly people as old as 82 did use
the electric cooking appliances either for
preparing meals or just boiling water.
The participants were asked about the
number of people who are being fed on a
daily basis from their kitchen. The smallest
number mentioned was two people, and
this is for a couple whose children are
schooled in other towns, which is
customary in rural Haitian families. The
Haitian Rice and Bean Sauce
PAGE | 36
Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
largest number mentioned by cooking
participants was thirteen, and this includes
not only family members but neighbours
and friends as well those who regularly eat
at the participant’s house. The majority of
participants were serving between four and
ten people with household cooking.
In a small town like Les Anglais, it is not
uncommon to have more than 1 household
in a yard where the extended family or a
neighbour live. Depending on the
relationship among the various people, they
might cook and eat together or the head of
one household could cook and send food to
the other houses. Most of the time
households were cooking only for their
household and immediate family, but on
occasion friends, neighbours, and others
also ate the meals prepar ed. Two
participants even highlighted that they also
supported a small enterprise selling
prepared food.
Baseline menus and cooking/prepping
times were established from participant
recorded energy diaries. Not all participants
recorded energy diaries and some were
more diligent about filling them out than
others. Initial corrected energy/cooking
diaries are included in the supporting
information.
The participants made a variety of
traditional Haitian meals over the course of
the baseline and electric cooking study
Figure 4: Base Meal Type and Addition to Meal Frequencies
PAGE | 37
Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
period. These meals mostly consisted of a
starch (rice, spaghetti/macaroni, cornmeal,
wheat/millet, plantain, viv (boiled
roots/plantain), breadfruit) and an addition
of beans, meat, vegetables, eggs, and/or fish.
Mostly food was boiled or fried and rice was
the most common item prepared followed
by tea/coffee/hot chocolate and
spaghetti/macaroni) (Figure 4). Beans were
the most common addition followed by fish
or meat. Other additions include d
vegetables, legum (braised vegetables with
sauce and coconut), eggs, etc. (Figure 4).
Electric Cooking and Customer
Consumption
Participants also recorded estimated start
and stop times for cooking. Despite some
issues matching the energy diaries to the
actual smart metering data, the diaries still
highlighted changes in overall
cooking/prepping times for baseline
(mostly charcoal) and electric cooking. It is
important to note that the times include
prepping time not just cooking times and
they came from participant reported start
and end times which had some accuracy
challenges because participants sometimes
retroactively filled out their diaries,
mislabelled entries (corrected where
possible in review), only reported hours not
hours and minutes, etc. Further, the
groupings displayed below were assigned
to each of the participants’ entries which
could have led to transcription or
classification errors.
Despite these limitations, the diaries
highlight a pattern that electric cooking
significantly decreases cooking time,
particularly for staple meal bases like
breadfruit (53%), viv (51%),
soup/stew/bouillon (51%), wheat/millet
(41%), spaghetti/macaroni (39%), rice (32%).
Comparisons of participant recorded
cooking/prep times can be seen in Figure 5
below. Many of the dishes still have time
intensive prep work, but the cooking time
savings significantly cut overall meal
preparation times (Figure 5).
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
As above, there were some issues matching
the participants’ energy diaries and
recordings with the actual electricity data
streams from the smart meters which
resulted in electricity consumption data
being presented per “cooking event” as well
as hourly, daily, and monthly averages as
discussed below (see the supporting
annexes for raw data). A cooking event was
defined as any time the pressure cooker or
induction stove meters were recording
power draw greater than 100W on average.
Continuous 15-minute intervals represent
the same “cooking event”. In the observed
period, there were an estimated 3,820
electric cooking events (1,372 pressure
cooker, 2,448 induction stove, 166 with
both) totalling an estimated 3,713 hours of
cooking and 3,979 kWh of electricity. On
average the cooking events lasted 58.8
minutes (50 minutes pressure cooker, 66
minutes induction stove, 112 minutes both)
and consumed an average of 1.05 kWh (0.83
kWh pressure cooker, 1.14 kWh induction
stove, 1.63 both) (Figure 6). As above,
unfortunately, with instability in meter
communications for off-grid meters,
cooking events were only recorded
intermittently with single intervals
accounting for the consumption in other
Figure 5: Average Cooking/Prepping Times by Meal Type
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
periods. That lessened the intervals
recorded for calculating cooking event time.
Accordingly, the cooking event comparison
cannot be made effectively for microgrid vs.
off-grid participants, but as above given the
profiles of the participants it is expected that
they will be somewhat similar.
Cooking event data also showed significant
ranges for individual customers. On
average, customers used electric cooking in
79% of their observed days, but several
customers used electric cooking nearly
every day of the study. There were some
technical and equipment challe nges
(discussed below) that account for some of
the non-use days. In total there were only
three customers with below 50% utilization,
two of them were dealing with sickness in
the family and/or the primary user and the
third wasn’t too motivated to use the
electric cooking devices. Other metrics as
well showed significant ranges across
Figure 6: Electric Cooking Events by Device
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
customers. With the exception of the less
than interested participant, most
households showed meaningful and
sustained utilization of electric cooking
devices (Figure 7).
At the individual customer leve l,
consumption and device preference varied
significantly. Overall, individual customers
averaged 1.92 kWh per day. Average
induction stove use was 1.58 kWh per day
and average pressure cooker use was 0.79
kWh per day. Off-grid customers consumed
an average of 1.18 kWh per day, while
microgrid customers consumed around 2.4
kWh per day. Average overall consumption
(including non-cooking hours) for
individual customers averaged 0.30 kWh
per hour in a day. Individual customers’
induction stove usage averaged 0.28 kWh
per hour in a day, while their pressure
cooker usage average 0.15 kWh per hour in
a day (Figure 8).
Figure 7: Summary of Individual Participant Electric Cooking
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
It should be noted that Figure 8 is only
SparkStove participants. Unfortunately,
with instability in meter communications
for off-grid meters (due mostly to
intermittent coverage and relay distance),
intervals are only recorded intermittently
with single intervals accounting for the
consumption in other periods. Although the
energy consumed was log ged and
eventually transmitted, this lessened
available hours to calculate true hourly
averages and load profiles for off-grid
participants. Consequently, the hourly
averages for off-grid participants are
reflected as lumpier and higher (for certain
hours) than actual consumption patterns.
However, from participant surveys and
observations it is expected that the on-grid
consumption profiles are generally
representative of the off-grid consumption
profiles as well.
One of the notable additions for the off-grid
system was the 3rd outlet (usb and AC
outlet) to support basic energy access needs
including lighting, small radios, and cell
phone charging. Over the course of the
study the off-grid participants utilized 29.6
Figure 8: Average Electricity Consumption per Customer by Device
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
kWh of electricity and were very excited
about the opportunity (see changing the
narrative section below). Daily usage
averaged 0.06 kWh per customer and
overall average hourly usage was 0.011
kWh, but ranged from 0.002 to 0.025 kWh
across the eight customers.
Microgrid Operations and
Power Quality
Overall, from July 1, 2020 to November 10,
2020, project participants consumed 3,985
kWh. Off-grid participants accounted for
681 kWh and microgrid participants
accounted for 3,303 kWh. This is in part
because there were fewer off -grid
participants and they generally were
connected later than microgrid participants
(Figure 9).
Even once all participants were connected,
off-grid participants only accounted for
16.6% of energy consumed. When
comparing devices, the induction stoves
accounted for 2,767 kWh (69.4%) and the
pressure cookers accounted for 1,218 kWh
(30.5%). Once all participants were online,
overall daily consumption averaged 53.8
kWh (5.6 kWh off -grid, 56.0 kWh
microgrid). Daily induction stove use
Figure 9: Daily Total Microgrid Electricity Consumption in October
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
averaged 38.0 kWh and daily pressure
cooker use averaged 15.9 kWh.
Once all participants were online, average
hourly consumption at the grid level was
2.26 kWh with the majority of consumption
(61%) occurring between 9 AM and 4 PM.
This consumption aligns with high solar
production for the grid (discussed below).
As above, average hourly consumption also
differed by device and customer type. The
induction stove averaged 1.61 kWh and the
pressure cooker averaged 0.70 kWh.
The electric cooking pilots added significant
load to the existing microgrid in Les
Anglais. For example, in the month of
October total average daily load increased
20% because of electric cooking load.
Individual hourly consumption on the grid
also increased by an average of 19%, but
from 8 AM to 2 PM hourly microgrid load
increased 42%-55% (Figure 10).
On normal sunny days, the microgrid has
enough extra solar + storage capacity to
absorb the cooking load, particularly since it
is aligned in the middle of the day, but when
solar production is low due to cloudy days
and rain, the microgrid has seen increased
diesel generator usage and on a few
Figure 10: Hourly Average Microgrid Electricity Consumption
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
occasions blackouts due to overdraw of the
generator. At the highest-level, monthly
generator use increased 33% from the start
of the cooking pilot in July to the end of
October. It should be noted that other
significant loads were added to the Les
Anglais system in July 2020 when the
electric cooking pilot started, in particular
two telecommunications towers which were
themselves a significant draw on the
system, so the increase in generator use is
not fully attributable to electric cooking.
This illustrates the significant impact that
electric cooking load has had on microgrid
operations. In general, the additional draw
on the grid is beneficial to the business
model of microgrid operations because the
draw coincides with the least-cost energy
production. When solar energy generation
is low, however, the electric cooking can be
expensive or technically detrimental to the
grid. As anticipated, this finding
underscores the importance of 1) deferrable
loads on the grid during low sun days or
plans to add additional generation capacity
and 2) time-of-use cooking plans to prevent
instantaneous demand from exceeding
supply. In the future it may also be possible
to integrate weather conditions into cooking
tariffs (i.e. sunny day tariffs for electric
cooking).
Electric cooking did seem to have some
impact on delivered voltage, particularly on
certain distribution lines, but overall
delivered voltage stayed within normal +/-
5% ranges to the customer devices.
Customer Surveys
For the most part, the electric cooking
participants responded extr emely
positively to the electric cooking
technology. The most mentioned benefit
was the amount of time saved cooking with
electricity rather than using charcoal. Beans
are very present in Haitian cuisine and it can
take at least two hours to get the dry beans
ready for the meals. With the use of the
electric cooking appliances, this time has
been reduced by more than half. Cooked for
about 30 minutes in the Simpot, dry black
beans can be ready for consumption. The
same beans would take at least 1.5 to 2 hours
on charcoal including the time to get the
charcoal hot enough to be able to cook food.
Responses from some participants stressed
the ever-increasing price of charcoal, which
represents a big expenditure for the
household. It is interesting to note how a
higher percentage of microgrid participants
reported saving money on charcoal than off-
grid participants. Under this circumstance,
the off-grid participants always needed to
have a supplementary fuel source.
Some off-grid participants mentioned the
additional benefits of having lighting and a
power outlet in their homes with the
SUNSPOT. Some of them would normally
use kerosene lamps or rechargeable lights
for their homes but they now have a light
point with the system, that works even
when the weather is too bad for electric
cooking to be possible. The ability to charge
phones for themselves and some people in
their family and neighbourhood was
mentioned and this allows the participants
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
to save more money as they no longer need
to go to phone charging businesses to have
their phone batteries charged.
Forty-five percent (45%) of participants
responded that they increased their cooking
frequency as a result of the electric cooking
devices, while 48% responded that there
was no change, and 7% replied that it
depended on finances available for
purchasing additional food to cook.
All participants responded that electric
cooking saved them time compared to
status quo cooking. 78% of participants
indicated that they used that time for
relaxing, 33% for household chores, 15% for
focusing on business and income tasks, 7%
for self-care, and 7% for family care.
Only a few challenges were mentioned by
the electric cooking participants. The one
that was mentioned almost as often by the
microgrid and the off-grid participants was
related to the size of the appliances and how
that would in turn limit what they were able
to cook with them. For instance, the Simpot
is a 6-quart pot and is well sized for a small
family of 5 to 8 family members. However,
beyond that number, it can be challenging
to prepare some Haitian meals with the
Figure 11: Advantages and Disadvantages of Electric Cooking
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Simpot. One example is the rice and beans
dishes (diri kole) which can be voluminous.
Mashed breadfruit, called “tom tom” was
also mentioned as a difficult meal to prepare
with the electrical appliances. The
breadfruits are normally boiled whole, and
some families can boil up to 8 breadfruits at
a time to feed everyone. The Simpot is too
small to contain this volume and the pots
available to use on the induction cooktop
are also not big enough. For this meal, many
participants go back to their traditional
charcoal stoves and aluminium pots.
Another disadvantage communicated by
some participants was that the
ferromagnetic pots which were provided or
available in the market in town or in the
nearby towns were too thin. This would
sometimes result in food being burned for
some meals. Another drawback of the
system is how cooking can be disrupted if
there is a power outage for the microgrid
participants (i.e. if there is not enough sun
during the day and the batteries do not get
the chance to charge enough). Some of the
off-grid participants for example keep a
small amount of charcoal in stock and have
no choice but to go back to the traditional,
outdoor kitchen to prepare food on the
charcoal stoves until the weather has
improved sufficiently for the system to be
operational.
The key advantage s, benefits, and
challenges of electric cooking systems as
highlighted by the on- and off-grid
participants can be seen in Figure 11.
Charcoal Costs and Indicative
Willingness to Pay
Electric cooking participants were also
asked about their charcoal expenses before
the start of the project and three months into
the project. For some participants, charcoal
has disappeared completely from their
kitchen. For others, there has been no
change in consumption or no change in the
amount spent on charcoal. This can be
explained by a few factors:
1. Some participants have a food selling
business, where they sell BBQ chicken.
They are now able to divert more
charcoal towards their business as they
remove it from their kitchen.
2. Some participants do not purchase
charcoal but produce it themselves. So,
their charcoal expenditure has not been
affected by the project.
3. Some participants still purchase
charcoal but instead of consuming all of
it, only save some as a backup fuel and
then sell the rest.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Monthly charcoal expenditures for
participants before electric cooking ranged
from 525 htg ($8.28 USD) – 9,300 htg ($147
USD) with an overall average of 2,538 htg
($40.28 USD) and an average of 2,278 htg
leaving out the highest expenditure
participant. After electric cooking,
expenditures ranged from 0 htg ($0 USD) to
6,200 htg ($98 USD). Most participants saw
savings as a result of electric cooking, with
13 participants saving between 80% and
100% on monthly charcoal expenditures.
Figure 12 highlights the savings on charcoal
expenditures for each customer. It should be
noted that some participants utilized
charcoal significantly for selling food
instead of solely self-consumption. Other
high expenditure participants cooked very
often or for a lot of people. Some households
didn’t record a before expenditure baseline
and some households didn’t record any
expenditure values at all. Otherwise, most
Figure 12: Percentage Savings on Charcoal Expenditures
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
of the customers saw a clear decrease in
expenditures.
Since most of the electric cooking project
participants reported saving money on
charcoal (other baseline fuels were utilized,
but primarily fuel use was charcoal, so
expenditures focused solely on charcoal),
they were asked about how they were
planning on using those savings. The most
popular response (45% of on-grid customers
and 25% of off-grid customers) was
investing it in schooling either for
themselves or for their kids (Figure 13). The
second most popular response was to invest
in their own business (35% of on-grid, 13%
of off-grid). Now that some money is
available, participants can buy in greater
bulk quantities for some products. One ice-
cream maker mentioned how she can now
produce twice the amount of ice cream as
she is able to buy more ingredients. This in
turn, is helping her generate extra revenue
from her business. Some participants are
not putting aside the money for future use.
Instead, some participants mentioned that
they are now able to buy better quality food
like better meat cuts, more frequently. Many
of those food products were not within their
Figure 13: Use of Savings from Electric Cooking
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
financial capacity, but they can now afford
it.
The research project offered free electricity
for electric cooking to the participants in
order to prioritize actionable data for
planning electric cooking. Even though
there was an absence of a true price signal
and therefore data on demand elasticity for
customers, we can still draw some insights
on what effective tariffs might be for electric
cooking interconnected on EarthSpark’s
microgrids. In general, EarthSpark offers
different levels of time varying prices to its
customers depending on their service level
ranging from 25 htg/kWh – 60 htg/kWh.
Currency fluctuation changes this range
substantially, but as of December 2020 this
was equivalent to about 40 – 95 cents per
kWh. By dividing customer charcoal
expenditure savings by the monthly electric
cooking electricity consumption, a range of
indicative willingness to pay values are
highlighted. Overall average indicative
willingness to pay (WTP) was around 30.76
htg/kWh. However, 13 of the participants
reported an indicative tariff at or above
existing EarthSpark tariffs and 4 customers
highlighted extraordinarily high economic
value for the electric cooking (>100
htg/kWh). If the four high WTP customers
are removed indicative average WTP drops
to 15 htg/kWh, which still indicates an
indicative willingness to pay that could be
Figure 14: Indicative Willingness to Pay for Electric Cooking
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
approached with specific incentives,
results-based financing, or improved
service (i.e. bigger devices as discussed
below), particularly if low engagement and
low usage customers are removed from
future electric cooking deployments (Figure
14).
Some customers, however, did not report
charcoal savings (or charcoal information at
all) and some reported very low savings (or
high electric cooking usage which
distributed those savings) which resulted in
very low to zero willingness to pay values.
Many of those customers have charcoal
consumption or use (i.e. food service
enterprises) that couldn’t fully be replaced
by the electric cooking deployed in this
project. There are of course lots of other
factors to consider, but these values coupled
with customer survey responses at least
highlight potential pathways for certain
customers to cost effectively utilize electric
cooking on microgrid tariffs compared to
baseline alternatives if initial capital costs
for equipment can be met (discussed later).
Key Takeaways
The biggest takeaways from the project
results include:
1. Electric cooking significantly
reduces the time burden of cooking,
particularly for staple foods which
creates significant time savings that
can be used to open up
opportunities for leisure, income,
education, and family care.
2. Participants utilized the induction
stove more frequently and more
intensively than the electric pressure
cookers, but both devices showed
significant daily usage.
3. Electric cooking load is concentrated
in the middle of the day aligning
with the traditional Haitian midday
meal and peak solar generation.
4. Electric cooking noticeably
increased grid loads and caused an
increase in generator usage for the
microgrid system even contributing
to overloading of the generator on
certain rainy days when combined
with other grid loads.
5. The electric cooking participants
saw a variety of benefits from
electric cooking, particularly time
saved during cooking.
6. For many participants the frequency
of cooking in their household
increased with electric cooking
because of the added convenience it
offered over status quo fuels.
7. Utilization of the electric cooking
solutions varied, but overall
participants had sustained and high
interest in and engagement with
electric cooking devices.
8. Financial savings on charcoal
expenditures following electric
cooking deployment ranged
significantly customer to customer,
but the project highlights indicative
willingness to pay values for many
customers at or above current
microgrid tariffs. This demonstrates
potential pathways for the financial
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
viability for powering electric
cooking with well -designed
microgrids.
9. Basic energy access is a critical
benefit provided by the off-grid
systems because it enables lighting
and cell phone charging.
All of this highlights a crucial opportunity
for electric cooking to be a catalyst for
socioeconomic development and to help
change the narrative on clean cooking in
Haiti and beyond.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Overall, the pilot project has showcased the
value of electric cooking for both local
communities and microgrid operators while
also laying the foundation for further
research and outlining key needs for scaling
up electric cooking in Haiti and beyond.
Community Impacts - Catalyst
for Improved Quality of Life
Overwhelmingly, the electric cooking pilot
demonstrated the life-changing potential of
electric cooking for communities.
The biggest impact noted by participants
has been the time savings and convenience
of electric cooking compared to traditional
fuels. For this pilot electric cooking reduced
the time burden of cooking 32-53% for
staple foods in Haiti resulting in extra time
for leisure, income, education, and family.
The electric cooking solutions also
improved the convenience of cooking. For
example, a few participants highlighted the
fact that they can now wake up in the
middle of the night and easily have a hot
drink or porridge as a key benefit of the
electric cooking devices. Traditionally,
charcoal is utilized in an outdoor/separate
kitchen area and cooking in the middle of
the night, especially if it is raining, is not the
best experience. The clean electric cooking is
located inside the house and “right next to
the user”, making it more practical. One
participant in particular noted specifically
how the new cooking system was
convenient for her when making a tea at
night after she got sick.
Further morning food preparation time has
been improved allowing both for more
efficient cooking and a longer night’s rest.
One off-grid participant specifically shared
Discussion
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
that before with charcoal, she would try to
prepare food for kids before school, but at
times it would take so long that the food
was not ready and her kids had to leave for
school. Since the household got the
SUNSPOT, there is not a single day that her
kids have gone to school without eating.
It was also mentioned a few different times
during participant interviews that visitors
from the big cities were impressed by the
systems and were interested in purchasing
the appliances from us if we were selling
them. It was surprising to see people who
came from Port-au-Prince, which is the
capital and where the bigger stores and a
multitude of products are available, arrive
in a small rural town at almost the end of
Haiti and feel envious of the facilities that
are available to the electric cooking
participants. It also brings a sense of
satisfaction that great development and
progress can take place even in the most
remote of locations under the right
conditions.
Electric cooking in this pilot also reduced
fuel costs compared to baseline charcoal.
This of course was a function of the free
electricity provided during the pilot
research, but even with this indicative
willingness to pay values for most
participants were at or above existing
microgrid tariffs which highlights a critical
opportunity for electric cooking to support
improved livelihoods for vulnerable
households, particularly if the cost of
charcoal continues to rise in rural areas. For
example, one bucket of charcoal use to cost
75 htg in February 2020, but it was up to 175
HTG in October 2020, which is a 133% price
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
increase. There is an attempt to fix the price
at the market to 100HTG a bucket by the
local government, but it is unknown if this
change will last a long time due to expected
opposition from charcoal producers.
Finally, the electric cooking deployments
also significantly reduce the risk of
household air pollution. Though not
quantified specifically (discussed below in
future research), several participants
highlighted the health and convenience
benefits of removing smoke and heat
impacts from their cooking tasks.
For the off-grid systems, the impact of the
electric cooking system has been even
greater because it has also provided critical
baseline energy access for lighting and
phone charging. For lighting, a couple of
off-grid participants previously used
rechargeable lights in their homes but for
most of them, flashlights, solar lamps or
kerosene lamps are the only source of
lighting at night. The SUNSPOT system
comes with a USB light and bulb which
provides good lighting during cooking in
the room where the system is installed.
Some participants have mentioned how
their kids are able to use the lighting to
study at night and the usefulness of this
light in the morning when getting ready for
work and school. Another participant has
reported how he was able to provide
lighting all night for a wake at his house and
this made him very proud.
There are a few options for phone charging
for people who do not have electricity in
their homes in Les Anglais: use a small
panel, charging the phone at someone’s
house or using a phone charging station
business. The SUNSPOT system not only
brought electric cooking but also clean
lighting and a means to charge cell phones.
For the off-grid participants, this represents
another way for them to save money, as
phone charging stations can charge
customers between 10 and 20 HTG to charge
a cell phone, depending on the phone size.
This could mean savings up to 140 HTG per
week for someone who has a bigger phone
and charges it daily. SUNSPOT users can
also charge phones for their family
members and friends in the neighbourhood.
Impacts for Microgrid Models
and Operators – Critical
Pathway for Improved Service
Overall, electric cooking was a surprising
success from the operator point of view as
well. Electric cooking can leverage existing
capacity and logistics support to enhance
the value proposition of integrated
electrification to customers and add an
additional revenue stream for microgrid
operators. Electric cooking also reduces
GHG emissions from baseline fuels (a key
metric for microgrid regulators and
investors) and further allows for greater
utilization of installed solar capacity and
reduced curtailment as, at least in Haiti,
electric cooking loads tend to be highest in
the middle of the day when the solar
resource is strongest.
In many ways the load profiles matched
what was expected given the experience of
EarthSpark and the observed Haitian
cooking practices. The project illustrated
significant electric cooking demand in the
middle of the day coinciding with the
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
primary meal, with some cooking in the
shoulder periods as well, particularly in the
early morning (coffee, tea, spaghetti, etc.) as
well as the early evening (porridge, pate,
etc.). One surprising element however was
the increase in frequency of cooking events
even in short little spurts for tea, porridge,
etc.
Electric cooking requires significantly more
energy than what most “energy access”
microgrids have been designed to deliver.
This is both a challenge and an enormous
opportunity for microgrid developers. The
significant new revenue stream may be an
incentive to build more robust
infrastructure which, in turn, delivers
additional benefits to the community and
operator.
The pilot project did not include any time of
use restrictions or incentives through tariffs
for this initial research stage. It is
anticipated that restricting cooking time
availability would reduce the desirability of
the electric cooking devices for some
participants, but generally man y
participants were still interested in electric
cooking even once the timing window was
shortened to not include the evening hours
once the sun set following the initial pilot
project window.
Time restrictions are one pathway that can
be considered, but it is more likely that
EarthSpark could adopt time-varying prices
for electric cooking that would offer cheap
electricity during the day when there is
strong solar availability and more expensive
electricity at night when the grid is needing
to utilize the batteries or the backup
generator. The customers are already used
to this concept as it is the long-standing
practice for the general electricity tariffs that
EarthSpark provides. This would actually
align quite well with Haitian cooking
practices as well given the heavy focus on
the midday meal when there is generally
strong solar availability.
As hinted above, full cost-recovery wasn’t
achieved since the electricity and devices
were given to participants for free, but the
project does suggest potential pathways for
cost-effectiveness for certain customers if
initial capital costs of the devices can be
overcome. Further adoption would likely
occur if ongoing cost/kwh for verifiable
cooking applications were subsidized. Such
a results-based financing approach is not
unreasonable given the considerable health,
climate, and environmental benefits of
electric cooking.
The indicative willingness to pay values
calculated in this project highlighted that
many customers would find electric
cooking tariffs set around current microgrid
tariffs attractive, and some customers even
highlighted very large indicative values.
Obviously, these values will decrease when
customers are actually faced with price
signals, but for certain customers there is a
viable pathway. The biggest challenge is
overcoming the initial capital cost of the
devices. The initial capital costs of the
systems are likely too expensive for most
low-income families due to the
underdeveloped supply chain of both the
devices and the supporting accessories (i.e.
ferromagnetic pots) available in rural
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
communities like Les Anglais. If that barrier
can be overcome through something like
results-based financing or pay-as-you-save
type models, there is reason to believe that
(subsidized) ‘market rate’ electric cooking
could be attractive to customers based on
their indicated willingness to pay for
electric cooking services. Leveraging
microgrid models to utilize blended-
financing particularly for results- based
financing streams for health and
development outcomes might present an
attractive opportunity for scaling electric
cooking if the viability can be demonstrated
for donors and social impact investors.
Further, pay as you save models where the
appliance capital costs are paid off initially
using customers’ charcoal savings may also
work if the savings margins are high
enough with the rising cost of charcoal.
Even at low tariff levels around 20 – 25
htg/kWh (below current tariffs) electric
cooking presents a new value stream for
microgrid operators and further allows for
utilization of excess solar that would
otherwise be wasted. This allows for
increased flexibility in the sizing of
microgrid systems. Based on the findings
from this initial project EarthSpark is
already considering 10% of customers with
electric cooking in the planning for the next
round of microgrids in Haiti.
Social Inclusion and Gender
Impacts
The UN recognizes the complementarity of
the right to a healthy environment
(including built environment and the
structural inequities in living conditions),
right to development, and the right to
health, focusing increasingly on ‘diseases of
poverty’ among rural populations.
Household air pollution is widely
recognized as a critical barrier to achieving
basic human rights, particularly the right to
health, right to a healthy environment, and
the right to development. By expanding
opportunities for electric cooking and basic
energy access the project created specific
pathways to improve these rights for the
most vulnerable and marginalized
populations by significantly reducing
exposure to health hazards, improving
gender equality, improving quality of life,
reducing time burden, etc.
More generally, energy access and access to
clean cooking can also address the specific
social/power dynamics and structural
inequities from differing access to resources
that affect vulnerable populations in
situations of energy poverty, while also
strengthening the agency of those
populations to change the conditions of
their vulnerability. A key resource
imbalance addressed by electric cooking in
this project was related to time as it
significantly reduced the time burden for
cooking activities, particularly for women
and children.
As highlighted above, in deploying electric
cooking solutions to households in the rural
community of Les Anglais, the project is
directly supporting vulnerable populations,
particularly women and children and the
extreme poor, by reducing health impacts
from traditional fuels, reducing cooking
burden, and improving overall quality of
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
life. Specifically, all participants responded
that electric cooking saved them time
compared to status quo cooking. 78% of
participants responded indicating that they
used that time for relaxing, 33% for
household chores, 15% for focusing on
business and income tasks, 7% for self-care,
and 7% for family care.
Further, the project deliberately engaged
women and households in designing the
electric cooking solutions through direct
consultations and conversations. Notably,
the project also engaged men for input and
participation so as to not unintentionally
reinforce gender stereotypes around
cooking. Of the primary participants
beyond EarthSpark and Enèji Pwòp team
members, only one was male, so there is
more work to be done on this front.
During implementation, participants,
primarily women, were given direct
training and support for understanding and
utilizing the electric cooking devices.
Further, the demonstration events and the
outreach materials were also tailored to
support the specific questions and recipes
that are commonly used by women in Les
Anglais. Ongoing support/troubleshooting
was also made available to participants to
help answer specific questions related to
individual recipes and approaches.
Scaling-up Electric Cooking
First, to call out the obvious problem, the
energy sector in Haiti needs either an open
space for innovation or clear and coherent
regulation. The current regulatory
environment for microgrid development is
stifling progress. While there are no specific
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
policies or taxes directly hindering electric
cooking specifically, the government does
have an opportunity to develop a better
enabling environment for electric cooking,
particularly as it relates to imports/customs.
Further, the government can potentially
play a more catalytic role by developing and
supporting specific programs for results-
based financing and other mechanisms to
help drive investment in electric cooking,
particularly connected to microgrids and
other energy access pathways starting to
scale up in Haiti. As an aside, Haiti has a
long way to go on forming a basic enabling
environment for energy access, so
addressing this foundational issue should
be a priority.
Beyond that fundamental issue, one of the
biggest actions that is needed presently is
the development of results-based financing
and other mechanisms to specifically
connect clean cooking to other sustainable
development goals, especially as it relates to
food security, energy access, poverty
alleviation, and health. This deliberate
connection can help to catalyze and
coordinate investments and models in
target communities.
There are scattered efforts in the country as
highlighted above, but nothing specifically
for coordinating clean cooking at the
community level, and nothing at all for
driving investment in electric cooking in
particular. Further existing efforts have
mirrored challenges faced by other global
initiatives in that deployment and uptake of
clean cooking has been slow, especially for
rural households given cultural practices,
initial capital cost for alternatives,
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
availability of cookstoves, limited supply
chains, and community engagement.
That reality, along with the country’s
parallel efforts to address energy access,
highlights an opportunity for electric
cooking to drive near term action on clean
cooking if planned intentionally and
integrated effectively into energy access
programming and investing models.
Regardless, for the clean cooking transition
to be successful in Haiti, it will take a
coordinated effort bringing together NGOs,
private businesses, the Haitian government,
multi-lateral donors, and community
stakeholders.
As above, it will be critical to engage a
variety of stakeholders to help facilitate the
massive required action to overcome the
cooking challenge facing the country. The
government, particularly through
collaboration with multi-lateral donors and
other international partners, will need to
elevate clean cooking to be a priority focus
for socioeconomic development. Further,
these stakeholders will need to help
coordinate policy and investment
frameworks to help catalyze and coordinate
funding and action for clean cooking,
including by creating linkages to other
funding/policy sectors, especially with
health and the broader energy sector.
Specific dialogues also need to be opened
with donors and impact investors and the
broader research community to help create
the right incentive framework and
project/business models to more effectively
support the advancement of clean cooking
in Haiti. NGOs and private businesses will
need to co-develop these models and then
help ensure that they are tailored and
deployed to effectively meet the priorities
and needs of the target communities. The
communities themselves are of course
critical in this process and need to be
meaningfully included in the design and
development of solutions, business models,
and particularly the development of
marketing and outreach materials.
Technology providers also need to be
engaged to help innovate and create new
products more closely tailored to the needs
of developing communities, particularly for
electric cooking as discussed above.
Future Research
This pilot project opens up an exciting body
of research to explore to amplify and
accelerate the deployment of electric
cooking solutions to support community
clean cooking both in Haiti and beyond.
Potential research areas include, but are not
limited to:
• Electric cooking for larger users –
The current pilot focused on electric
cooking solutions to support single
household cooking needs, but in
local communities there is a
demonstrated need to expand future
research efforts to include
appliances and models for larger
cooking applications like
institutions, churches, street
vendors, etc. This not only expands
the benefits of electric cooking, but
also creates key community support
and buy-in for electric cooking.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
• Improved grid integration of
electric cooking – Electric cooking
devices can be better integrated into
microgrid operations by for example
designing products with more
specific controls for direct
communication with appliances and
appliance level
monitoring/controlling of electric
consumption across customers, load
disaggregation, and/or optimizing
the placement of electric cooking
customers on the distribution grid.
• Pricing and financing for electric
cooking – The initial pilot
prioritized research outcomes and
gave electricity to participants for
free, but it will be critical for
microgrid planning to explore
effective tariff designs and
price/incentive signals like time
variant pricing for end users to both
support demand for electric cooking
as well as operational needs for
microgrid operators. While survey
responses and alternative costs have
determined a starting point for
willingness-to-pay, there would be
enormous value in a deeply
participatory tariff discovery
process including optimal demand-
side management and time-of-use
tariff program requirements and
constraints. Further, as highlighted
above, a critical challenge is
overcoming that initial capital
barrier, so exploring pathways like
results-based financing for health
outcomes and/or pay-as-you-save
type models will be important for
further validating the electric
cooking model for solar microgrids.
• Quantification of health and HAP
benefits – One of the key potential
benefits from electric cooking is the
reduction in household air pollution
and associated health impacts from
baseline cooking fuels. The present
project addressed this qualitatively
with participants responding that a
key benefit of the electric cooking
was a reduction in the
inconvenience of smoke and heat
from charcoal. It will be important to
more deliberately quantify the
reduction in HAP by deploying
specific air quality monitoring and
analyse the impacts on end
outcomes like respiratory health.
EarthSpark is actively working to find
partners and pathways to address these
exciting opportunities as part of its
continuing work on electric cooking.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Throughout the project implementation
there were a number of challenges faced as
well as key lessons learned that are
important to highlight in order to inform
future electric cooking efforts in Haiti and
beyond. These have been broken down into
the following categories discussed
individually in more detail below:
• Design, Performance, and Technical
Issues
• Electric Cooking Equipment
• User Acceptance and Uptake
• Data Analysis and Collection
Design, Performance and
Technical Issues
Since the pilot project was giving
participants free electricity for electric
cooking, one challenge faced was to make
sure that no participant could tap into the
meters and have free electricity for purposes
other than electric cooking. This was
overcome by installing junction boxes to
eliminate access the electricity meters’ inlet
and outlet electrical ports. Further, the
actual electrical prongs from the cooking
devices themselves were adjusted so that
they were hardwired to the smart meters
instead to prevent other appliances from
being plugged into the electric cooking
setup.
During the initial deployments, one
induction cooktop was found faulty but
after inspection the root cause for the issue
was not fully identified. It is, however,
suspected that it stopped operating due to
insufficient ventilation during cooking. This
was noted as a lesson learned and this
information was shared to participants
during training sessions as an essential
practice when using the cooktop.
Lessons Learned
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
There were additional issues with needing
to replace thermal fuses for a few electric
pressure cookers and the top glass for one of
the induction stoves highlighting the
importance of sourcing replacement parts
and having them on hand locally to support
electric cooking deployments.
For microgrid installations, there were
several instances where one upstream
totalizer meter, which is a special meter
used to remotely turn on and off sections of
a grid subnetwork, would reach its
maximum power limit and enter into a
“Protect” mode, temporarily cutting off all
power for all customers downstream of it.
This would result in a blackout in a section
of the subnetwork, where many electric
cooking participants would be using the
cooking appliances around the same time.
This totalizer meter was bypassed for the
duration of the project, to allow for smooth
cooking and good data collection.
This highlights several critical lessons for
electric cooking and microgrid planning.
First for current grids electric cooking needs
to be deployed very strategically to ensure
minimal impacts to other electricity service.
By extension, future microgrids need to
specifically incorporate electric cooking
loads at the start to ensure optimal
deployment and design of the distribution
and generation systems - EarthSpark has
already integrated 10% of future grid
customers as electric cooking into its grid
planning efforts. Further, this experience
suggests strong research potential for
engaging smart meter and electric cooking
suppliers to better optimize technology
solutions for microgrid integration of
electric cooking.
Electric Cooking Equipment
Based on the participant surveys, it is clear
that larger pressure cookers need to be
sourced to fully match user needs and
preferences. Some of the pressure cookers
on the market can go up to 8, 10, 12, and
even 20 quarts and might be preferred for
larger families, rather than the standard 6-
quart volume that was used for the cooking
pilot project. Considering Haitian eating
habits and particularly the common practice
of sharing food between neighbours and
friends outside the home, larger pressure
cookers might be able to support a greater
share of the meal’s requirements for most
households. Further, appliances like rice
cookers could also be considered instead of
full electric pressure cookers. Sourcing
larger pots adds to cost considerations, but
is seemingly well worth the effort if it allows
for more effective electric cooking
participation from participants.
Further, most of the pressure cookers on the
market are designed for English speaking
users and the menus on the appliances are
in English. Haitians speak Haitian creole
but most participants can also understand
French. The fact that the indications are in
English tend to limit the understanding and
use of the pressure cookers, particularly for
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
the more advanced settings or cooking
modes. A pressure cooker from a French
manufacturer like Cookeo from Moulinex
or from Krups where there is a language
setting for French, could have enhanced the
user experience. Unfortunately, the price
point for those two products is quite high.
For the induction stoves, one of the biggest
challenges was the lack of proper cookware.
Ferromagnetic pots were sourced for
participants that didn’t already have them
either in the capital, Port-au-Prince (8 hours’
drive away), or in Les Cayes (3 hours’ drive
away). In some cases, the stores did not
allow the opening of boxes to verify that the
pots were indeed ferromagnetic, and some
of the pots came in boxes without indication
of whether they work on induction
cooktops. Some boxes mentioned that the
pots would work on all types of stoves, but
this turned out to be untrue. This resulted in
the sourcing of some pots which did not
work on the induction cooktop and hence
represented an unnecessary expense and
delay for the project.
Further, the initial ferromagnetic pots that
were sourced locally in Haiti and within a
price range that would be affordable to a
typical rural Haitian household were
unfortunately quite thin. While they were
good for boiling food or making tea and
coffee, frying food in those pots proved to
be undesirable as the pot for the food would
tend to burn easily. Having better quality,
thicker pots might have resulted in greater
success in enabling electric cooking usage
for participants.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
The project also investigated the possibility
of sourcing the induction cooktops and
pressure cookers in Haiti and two stores
were identified in Port -au-Prince.
Unfortunately, they only had less than 10
units in stock in all the stores in the country.
Quotes for importing through them turned
out to be more expensive than ordering
online and would have doubled the price at
least. This resulted in a small delay to get the
appliances in the country and to the
participants.
User Acceptance and Uptake
Cooking is very entrenched in cultural and
social norms making behavioural change
difficult if not impossible to catalyze and
sustain without deliberate community
engagement. For this project, a ll
participants had an initial mandatory
training during which they had a chance to
learn how to operate the appliances
effectively and safely. Further, Enèji Pwòp
staff conducted several additional
demonstration events to exhibit the electric
cooking devices for the community.
Participants were also given training
materials and basic recipe guides written in
Haitian creole that explained how the two
appliances and some basic tips and tricks for
cooking Haitian staples. All of these
trainings were conducted by a combination
of the Enèji Pwòp grid ambassador for Les
Anglais and the Enèji Pwòp technicians.
After the deployment of the appliances,
most participants called Enèji Pwòp staff
during their first cooking experience to
make sure they were doing the right
manoeuvres. The trainers were available on
call to respond to questions and make in-
house checks to assist in setting the
equipment correctly and providing
supplementary advice.
All of these elements were critical for
building community comfort with and
acceptance of electric cooking. Having the
technicians and ambassador participate in
the study alongside the other households
further created trust and internal advocacy
for clean cooking which helped to improve
participation throughout the study.
As discussed above, some of the biggest
barriers to customer acceptance and
utilization of electric cooking were related
to the equipment itself – either not being
able to cook the way they would normally
(i.e. too thin of pots for the induction stove,
not being able to cook the amount needed
(i.e. too small of pressure cookers), or not
being able to use electric cooking because of
outages on the microgrid or not enough
capacity with the off-grid solution.
Participants also mentioned how the steps
in electric cooking had to be different from
when cooking with charcoal. Electric
cooking appliances heat up much faster
meaning that users need to ensure their
vegetables and ingredients are prepped
before starting to cook to avoid ruining their
dish due to overcooking or burning. This is
a change from cooking with charcoal which
is quite slow to reach high temperatures and
allows for prep work to be done alongside.
Data Analysis and Collection
A combination of technologies and data
sources were utilized. First, all of the electric
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
cooking devices were connected to an
individual smart-meter which allowed for
close monitoring and analysis of electricity
consumption on a 15-minute interval. By
isolating the devices on individual meters,
the project was able to avoid some
challenges related to load disaggregation
for data analysis. Overall, the smart meters
worked well for tracking consumption
patterns and provided good visibility into
the overall impact of electric cooking. There
were some challenges, particularly for the
off-grid customers, in maintaining meter
communication. Since the communications
signal needed to be relayed from microgrid
meters over a hill to the off-grid site (meters
were rated as 100-meter line of site for
reliable communication), it sometimes
resulted in communication gaps with the
meters which caused the data stored locally
to “push” to a single interval when it
reconnected. This resulted in some
challenges for tracking true time of use and
profiles for the off-grid participants.
An additional consideration for future
efforts is looking to a more granular 5-
minute interval which might reveal more
nuanced patterns in the electric cooking,
and particularly the designation of a
cooking event or meal. A more aspirational
approach would be working together with
the appliance manufacturers and the smart
metering systems to embed a radio board
directly into the cooking appliances to
enable direct communication to the
appliances themselves.
The project also collected cooking diaries
from the participants. These provided some
more challenges for the project. With
complications from COVID and other
factors, there wasn’t as tight of monitoring
as planned which led to a lot of missing data
(days and questions) from participants as
well as participants recording information
several days after the fact. Further, the diary
questions didn’t always reveal the right
data for triangulating what meals were
done when and with what fuel.
All of this made it very challenging to
effectively match the electricity data with
the diary data. The challenges stemmed
from multiple cooking events for single
journal entries and vice versa, out of
alignment times, lack of clarity on fuel type
used, lack of consistency in time recordings,
and a broader definition of cooking time for
some participants. In the end, the diary data
was used to understand participant
recorded timing and the Haitian meals, but
was not used in the analysis of the electricity
consumption. Beyond clearer monitoring
and evaluation, more specific diary training
should be employed along with adjusted
diary templates to garner more specific
responses from participants.
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
Conclusion
Overall, the project is a first-step working to
prove the viability, effectiveness, and
attractiveness of electric cooking
technologies powered by robust, reliable
solar + storage energy systems supporting
critical socioeconomic development
outcomes in Haiti. The hope is that this will
help to demonstrate key demand for the
solution and create actionable evidence for
how to effectively design business models
and frameworks to better support future
electric cooking rollouts.
In doing this, the project is demonstrating
viable new revenue streams and
opportunities for energy access providers
which will help improve assistance, service,
and offerings to other communities. This
will also create pathways for donors, NGOs,
private sector, and other stakeholders to
meaningfully develop opportunities for the
expansion of clean cooking.
Exciting work is on the horizon and
EarthSpark looks forward to building on
this research foundation and elevating
electric cooking as a key tenet of integrated
electrification.
Conclusion
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Kwison Elektrik: Solar Power for Electricity Access and Electric Cooking in Haiti
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