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eCook: what behavioural challenges await this potentially transformative concept?

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posted on 2017-03-20, 11:36 authored by Ed BrownEd Brown, Jon Leary, Gillian Davies, Simon Batchelor, Nigel Scott
This paper aims to identify and understand the challenges that may confront the scaling up of a proposed battery electric cooking concept (Batchelor 2013), eCook, which offers the potential for emission free cooking, with time/money savings and broader environmental benefits from reduced fuelwood/charcoal consumption. By drawing on the literature on the transition to electric cooking in South Africa and more broadly, literature from across the Global South analysing the uptake of ICS (improved cookstoves), LPG (liquid petroleum gas) and solar home systems, this study identifies the factors (e.g. successful delivery models and marketing strategies) that have enabled these innovations to reach scale. This knowledge is then related to the eCook concept, by identifying the potential users of this promising technology and outlining potential marketing strategies, as well as a user-focused iterative design process, that will enable social enterprises to reach them. Uptake is predicted to be most rapid in hot climates where fuelwood/charcoal is purchased and low energy diets and low power cooking devices are the standard. Mobile enabled fee-for-service (utility) business models, the establishment of a service network, awareness raising campaigns on the benefits of clean cooking, female-focussed training programs and bundling eCook systems with locally appropriate appliances to enable productive activities are seen as key to reaching scale.

Funding

The research on which this paper was based was conducted by Loughborough University Department of Geography and Gamos Ltd. for Evidence on Demand with the assistance of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) contracted through the Climate, Environment, Infrastructure and Livelihoods Professional Evidence and Applied Knowledge Services (CEIL PEAKS) programme, jointly managed by DAI (which incorporates HTSPE Limited) and IMC Worldwide Limited. The research grew out of conversations initiated under the EPSRC Project EP/L014858/1, The LCEDN USES Programme Network.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Geography and Environment

Published in

Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

Citation

BROWN, E.D. ...et al., 2017. eCook: what behavioural challenges await this potentially transformative concept? Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, 22, pp.106-115.

Publisher

© The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-02-27

Publication date

2017

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

2213-1388

Language

  • en

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