The world’s first ever issued carbon credits linked from clean cooking to start in Ugandan village in Africa. Social enterprise, UpEnergy, has recently announced the transition over to electric cooking devices. These devices will be verified by The Gold Standard and will save a significant amount of emissions. The new project, launched in sub-Saharan Africa, will help African families switch from wood-based/ traditional biomass fuel systems to zero-emission electric. Traditional burning stoves will be replaced with an electrical system developed by the climate tech company, PowerUp.
The PowerUp appliances and electronic devices have been designed for low income households across the sub-Sahara, and the sales of carbon credits give these families a substantial chance to join the sustainability movement. The main electronic appliances given out were pressure cookers – versatile in creating many different dishes in large quantities. UpEnergy has recorded about 1,800 electric stove installations and estimate another 6,000 to be disbursed in homes across Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, and Ghana throughout 2023.
"We now have an incredibly timely opportunity to build on the rapid energy transition taking place across the continent and deliver the additional health and economic benefits that can come along with it. Zero-emissions electric pressure cookers are seemingly simple, low-cost devices that offer one of the best interventions for decarbonisation while also addressing health and economic challenges,” stated UpEnergy group Commercial Director, Pantaleon Anani.
According to Anani, between the years 2014 and 2019, more than 115 million homes across Africa gained electricity, an increasing and groundbreaking number. This number is beyond significant when discussing its implementation in Africa, one of the world's most generationally impoverished continents. Around 92% of all the in-house electricity comes from renewable energy, but at least 80% still rely on traditional, yet toxic, daily cooking practices.
In order to provide an easy adaptation and adoption process, UpEnergy has also created a redesigned interface program that includes local cooking habits and proper appliance usage, to ensure high quality success. The many benefits of this transferral are – it takes 60% less time to cook on the new electric stove rather than the traditional biomass, families could save about 50% on fuel costs, respiratory and other illnesses will decrease, and these families are presented with a sustainable and healthy alternative. Traditional biomass fueled stoves still remain to be the only cooking method for about 2.4 billion people worldwide, but UpEnergy believes they found a much needed answer for that prominent problem. According to the World Health Organization, about 4 million people die each year as a result from indoor air pollution, this number can drastically decrease with the continuation of this project. The burning of solid fossil fuel is also responsible for about 58% of global black carbon emissions and an annual one gigaton of CO2 emissions.
UpEnergy has announced that in addition to their work in African nations, they are expanding their efforts into Asia and South America. This majorly influential company has also heavily contributed to the fight for clean water access through their Uganda programs, and are piloting new afforestation and biochar removal projects, in which details have not been disclosed yet.
