NANCY Seminar – Sébastien Desbureaux (CEE-M)

Event details :

Title: Accelerating the adoption of green technologies in low-income countries: impact and mechanisms for electric cooking in the D.R. Congo

Abstract: Charcoal remains the primary cooking-fuel of one-third of humanity, with important negative consequences for forests, wildlife and climate change. As access to electricity is steadily increasing, our randomized control trial asks whether electric cooking can become a credible alternative to charcoal in the context of a low-income country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We study the impact on the demand for charcoal and mechanisms that could encourage adoption. Our first results show that the adoption of energy-efficient electric cookers lead to a 21% increase in electricity consumption in the 12 months following the start of the experiment, and in a 30% decrease in charcoal consumption after 6 and 12 months. They highlight that it can be profitable for energy distributors to subsidize the initial purchase of a cooker ($80) and reimburse themselves through increased electricity revenues (+$115 over five years using a 10% discount rate) and carbon finance (over 6t CO2eq per cooker, $10-15/t). As credit constraints are a key barrier preventing households to transition towards green, reliable but expensive cooking technologies, such business model has the potential to accelerate the transition towards clean cooking, with important benefits for all beings, whether they are human or not.