Renewable cooking equipment in India

This project enables households in rural India access to a 100% renewable energy method for cooking. Cooking on biogas is better for health, climate and the environment and saves households time and money. The project is Fairtrade and Gold Standard certified, ensuring that a fair, minimum income is generated for the families it supports.

Clean, safe and healthy food preparation has a huge range of benefits for both people and the planet. In India, a large part of the rural population (800 million people) still cooks on an open fire. Burning biomass makes an important contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Using wood for cooking is a cause of deforestation. Cooking on an open fire not only has adverse effects on the climate, it also has a negative impact on peoples' health. In India, more than a million people die every year from inhaling harmful fumes from cooking.

Organic waste (mainly cow droppings) is converted in an underground bio-digester into methane gas for cooking. About 2 cows are needed to provide an average household with sufficient gas for daily cooking. This clean way of cooking replaces the traditional way of using an open fire. Using biogas is comparable to cooking on normal gas in terms of convenience and air quality. The only difference is that biogas is a 100% renewable energy!

The project is already working well, with ambition to do lots more. Since 2009, the project has given 12,000 families access to biogas and saved 436,837 trees and 203,000 tonnes of CO2.

28 Feb 2021

India