Household Cooking Energy Diversity

Household cooking energy is often discussed as a “one fuel - one stove” system. The archetype of this idea is the rural household using firewood in a 3-stone fireplace. Many households, particularly in urban environments, are actually using several fuels and several stoves for a variety of reasons:

§ The cooking of different food requires different types of heat.

§ Seasonal variation of availability or affordability of fuels (e.g. biomass as back-up if fossil fuels or electricity is not available, increasing prices or money shortages at the end of the month);

§ Variation of convenience needs (e.g. fast cooking in the morning, slow cooking in the evening);

§ Different abilities of cooks using a stove (e.g. expensive fuels and stoves shall not be used by the young daughter, so she is using firewood);

§ Different cooking needs (e.g. preparation of meals for the family on a different stove as the preparation of animal feed or processed food for the market);

§ Different types, shapes and sizes of cooking utensils (cooking pots, pans etc.) require different stove shapes or sizes.