Logo

Appliances Guide



Stoves & ovens

Cooking is the most universal residential energy service. It is responsible for around 5% of all greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, which is about 2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent emissions per year. Around three quarters of this is due to inefficient biomass- or coal-based cooking in developing countries. Around 50 % of energy for this solid-fuel cooking could be saved with very low costs and high net benefits. Switching to energy-efficient and low-carbon modern cooking appliances may allow even higher savings but at higher costs.

Efficient cooking stoves and ovens can save users a lot of energy

Cover

What users can save with energy-efficient cooking stoves and ovens

Residential cooking stoves and ovens are used by households for cooking and baking food. A broad range of different technologies and designs are used for cooking in the world of today. While the most basic way of cooking—heating food above an open fire fuelled by biomass—is still predominant in many developing countries, in industrialised countries sophisticated stoves or cookers prevail, which use electricity or gas to deliver the required heat for the cooking process. Read more in the attached pdf file „What users can save with energy-efficient cooking stoves and ovens“. For about 2.5 billion people in the world, improved biomass cooking stoves are the cheapest way to save firewood, crop residues or dung, while reducing both harmful impacts on human beings and their environment. Energy savings of up to 80 % and significant reductions of GHG emissions, indoor pollution and deforestation can be achieved. Energy savings of 10 to 30 % can be cost-effective for both gas and electric stoves (also called hobs), and up to 50 % for ovens. In most countries, costs and primary energy can also be saved by switching from electricity to natural gas or biogas. The assumable most environmentally friendly way of cooking is based on the use of renewable energies as primary energy source for cooking, as is the case with sustainably produced biogas from organic waste matter (including manure and sewage) or solar cooking stoves for instance. Natural gas and petroleum gas (LPG) will in most situations be the next best alternative in terms of primary energy and greenhouse gas emissions, preferable over electricity unless the latter is predominantly produced from renewable energies in a country or region.

Pages: 30
Type: PDF
Size: 5.7 MB
Upload: 2014-03-17
View Document

Good Practice Technology Examples:

Cover

Good Practice Technology: Rocket Stove

Rocket stoves include an insulated L-shaped combustion chamber that allows for partial combustion of the gases and smoke in a stove, and thus achieve important emission benefits compared to open fires or crude stoves. Biomass input can be improved by up to 70 per cent and emissions reduced by up to 86 per cent at comparably low costs.

Pages: 9
Type: PDF
Size: 1.7 MB
Upload: 2014-10-08
View Document
Cover

Good Practice Technology: Save80 Stove

The stove Save 80 uses 80 percent less wood fuel than traditional fireplaces. The retained heat from the cooker of the stove allows additional energy saving. Once the food reaches boiling point in the cooking pot, it is transferred to the retained heat cooker that keeps the temperature for a long time without using direct heat sources. Users of Save 80 reduce negative environmental impacts by avoiding CO2 emissions due to inefficient burning of firewood. In addition, households could drastically reduce time spent for firewood collection or costs related to the purchase of fuels, depending on respective fuel prices and access to fuel wood.

Pages: 8
Type: PDF
Size: 1.5 MB
Upload: 2014-10-08
View Document

Cutting world energy use for domestic cooking by more than a third

Cover

The overall worldwide saving potential from domestic cooking stoves and ovens

Potentials for improved energy efficiency of cooking stoves and ovens are large. Taken together, a reasonable estimate is that the potential exists to reduce total worldwide energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions for residential cooking by more than a third, despite growth in population. Analysis on the use of different cooking fuels suggests that about 88 per cent of all fuel consumed for cooking are biomasses such as wood, dung, crop residues or charcoal. This is due to the large number of biomass users, the low energy content of biomasses and inefficient stove designs. The daily fuelwood consumption alone accounts for about 7 million m³ in absolute terms. It is estimated that the new generation of advanced biomass cookstoves would reduce biomass fuel use and the related CO2 emissions by about 50 percent. This can be several hundred kg of wood and other biomass that one family saves to collect or buy. According to calculations by the WHO, policy interventions aiming to make households switch to more sophisticated cooking fuels or improved stove designs are very cost-efficient. The comparison of costs and benefits arising from such interventions show that in monetary terms about US$ 100 billion per year could be saved by halving the number of people cooking with solid fuels through the provision of access to more sophisticated fuels and improved stove designs. Also in developed countries large potentials for increasing energy efficiency can be found. For example, an energy savings potential of 286 PJ/yr, or almost 50 %, exists in the European Union (EU) (period between 2010 and 2025).

Pages: 15
Type: PDF
Size: 1.3 MB
Upload: 2014-03-17
View Document

Managing demand needs measuring energy efficiency

Cover

Test procedures, measurements and standards for cooking stoves and ovens

Consumers and policymakers need to be able to compare the annual energy consumption and efficiency of different models of similar size and function. Test procedures to measure energy consumption and efficiency are therefore crucial for markets and policies to work well. Unfortunately, cooking is a difficult subject in that respect. We have collected and compared what is known on test procedures and standard definitions for energy efficiency so far.

Pages: 6
Type: PDF
Size: 290.3 KB
Upload: 2014-03-17
View Document

What policy can do and achieve for energy efficiency of stoves and ovens

Find out in the bigEE Policy Guide, including an example of a successful large-scale financial incentive programme from China.

Further Readings

Energypedia - Improved Cooking Portal

Was this page helpful?   33% of our visitors found this helpful.