Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Wireless sensors linked to climate financing for globally affordable clean cooking

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 44–47 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Three billion of the world’s poorest people mostly rely on solid biomass for cooking, with major consequences to health1 and environment2. We demonstrate the untapped potential of wireless sensors connected to the ‘internet of things’ to make clean energy solutions affordable for those at the bottom of the energy pyramid. This breakthrough approach is demonstrated by a 17-month field study with 4,038 households in India. Major findings include: self-reported data on cooking duration have little correlation with actual usage data from sensors; sensor data revealed that the distribution of high and low users varied over time, and the actual mitigation of climate pollution was only 25% of the projected mitigation; climate credits were shown to significantly incentivize the use of cleaner technologies.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Comparison of cooking duration from self-reported and sensor-reported data.
Figure 2: Frequency distribution of household cooking duration on the ICS_FD stove in Odisha, India.
Figure 3: Monthly trend of cooking duration during 17 months.
Figure 4: Stove usage over time based on stove installation date.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Lim, S. S. et al. A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet 380, 2224–2260 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Anenberg, S. C. et al. Cleaner cooking solutions to achieve health, climate, and economic cobenefits. Environ. Sci. Technol. 47, 3944–3952 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Barnes, D. F., Kumar, P. & Openshaw, K. Cleaner Hearths, Better Homes: New Stoves for India and the Developing World (Oxford University Press The World Bank, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Rehman, I. H., Ahmed, T., Praveen, P. S., Kar, A. & Ramanathan, V. Black carbon emissions from biomass and fossil fuels in rural India. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 7289–7299 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Ramanathan, V. & Carmichael, G. Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon. Nat. Geosci. 1, 221–227 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Streets, D. G., Shindell, D. T., Lu, Z. & Faluvegi, G. Radiative forcing due to major aerosol emitting sectors in China and India. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40, 4409–4414 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. IPCC Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (eds Stocker, T. F. et al.) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Integrated Assessment of Black Carbon and Tropospheric Ozone: Summary for Decision Makers (UNEP and Wold Meterological Organization, 2011); http://www.unep.org/dewa/Portals/67/pdf/Black_Carbon.pdf

  9. Bond, T. C. et al. Bounding the role of black carbon in the climate system: a scientific assessment. J. Geophys. Res. 118, 5380–5552 (2013).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Jain, A., Choudhury, P. & Ganesan, K. CEEW Report: Clean, Affordable and Sustainable Cooking Energy for India (Council on Energy, Environment, and Water, 2015).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Patange, O. S. et al. Reductions in indoor black carbon concentrations from improved biomass stoves in rural India. Environ. Sci. Technol. 49, 4749–4756 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kar, A. et al. Real-time assessment of black carbon pollution in Indian households due to traditional and improved biomass cookstoves. Environ. Sci. Technol. 46, 2993–3000 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. MacCarty, N., Ogle, D., Still, D., Bond, T. C. & Roden, C. A laboratory comparison of the global warming impact of five major types of biomass cooking stoves. Energy Sustain. Dev. 12, 56–65 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Freeman, O. E. & Zerriffi, H. How you count carbon matters: implications of differing cookstove carbon credit methodologies for climate and development cobenefits. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48, 14112–14120 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Aung, T. W. et al. Health and climate-relevant pollutant concentrations from a carbon-finance approved cookstove intervention in rural India. Environ. Sci. Technol. 50, 7228–7238 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Graham, E. A. et al. Laboratory demonstration and field verification of a Wireless Cookstove Sensing System (WiCS) for determining cooking duration and fuel consumption. Energy Sustain. Dev. 23, 59–67 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Hanna, R., Duflo, E. & Greenstone, M. Up in Smoke: The Influence of Household Behavior on the Long-run Impact of Improved Cooking Stoves (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  18. Lewis, J. J. & Pattanayak, S. K. Who adopts improved fuels and cookstoves? A systematic review. Environ. Health Perspect. 120, 637–645 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ruiz-Mercado, I., Masera, O., Zamora, H. & Smith, K. R. Adoption and sustained use of improved cookstoves. Energy Policy 39, 7557–7566 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Pillarisetti, A. et al. Patterns of stove usage after introduction of an advanced cookstove: the long-term application of household sensors. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48, 14525–14533 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Thomas, E. A., Barstow, C. K., Rosa, G., Majorin, F. & Clasen, T. Use of remotely reporting electronic sensors for assessing use of water filters and cookstoves in Rwanda. Environ. Sci. Technol. 47, 13602–13610 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Adoption of the Paris Agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2015); http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf

  23. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy National Biomass Cookstoves Programme (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India, 2016); http://mnre.gov.in/schemes/decentralized-systems/national-biomass-cookstoves-initiative

  24. State of Forest Report 2011 Socio-Economic Contribution of Forests: Production and Consumption of Forest Resources in India 67–79 (Forest Survey of India, Ministry of Environment & Forests, 2011).

  25. Venkataraman, C., Sagar, A. D., Habib, G., Lam, N. & Smith, K. R. The Indian national initiative for advanced biomass cookstoves: the benefits of clean combustion. Energy Sustain. Dev. 14, 63–72 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. AMS II-G Small Scale Methodology Energy Efficiency Measures in Thermal Applications of Non-Renewable Biomass (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2014); https://cdm.unfccc.int

  27. Akagi, S. K. et al. Emission factors for open and domestic biomass burning for use in atmospheric models. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 4039–4072 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Meinshausen, M. et al. Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C. Nature 458, 1158–1162 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Ramanathan, V. & Xu, Y. The Copenhagen Accord for limiting global warming: criteria, constraints, and available avenues. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 8055–8062 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. State and Trends of Carbon Pricing (World Bank Group, 2014); http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/Climate/State-and-Trend-Report-2015.pdf

Download references

Acknowledgements

C2P2 was initiated by Project Surya, an international collaboration between University of California, San Diego, Nexleaf Analytics and The Energy and Resources Institute. The primary funding for this work was provided by L. and M. McQuown, with additional funding from Qualcomm Wireless Reach, UK DFID, Beneventures Foundation, J. and E. Frieman, and C. Kennel & E. Lehman. Project Surya was started by funding from National Science Foundation (J. Fein) and incubated at UNEP beginning 2009. We are indebted to M. Lawrence whose comments significantly enhanced the clarity of presentation. In addition we thank M. Lawrence for suggesting the field survey. We acknowledge M. Lukac for developing the WiCS. We acknowledge G. Dalai, B. Dash, M. Singh, A. Mohd, L. Singh, the staff of Saunta Gaunta Foundation and the TERI field team for stove and sensor installation, beneficiary engagement and data collection. The data for Fig. 1 were collected as part of a study led by S. Pattanayak. The focus group instrument was designed with B. Augsburg. J. Ross supported the data analysis, and E. Wu and S. Maltz helped edit the paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nexleaf Analytics, Los Angeles, California 90064, USA

    Tara Ramanathan, Nithya Ramanathan & Eric Graham

  2. The Energy Resources Institute, New Delhi 110003, India

    Jeevan Mohanty & Ibrahim H. Rehman

  3. University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA

    Veerabhadran Ramanathan

Authors
  1. Tara Ramanathan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nithya Ramanathan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jeevan Mohanty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ibrahim H. Rehman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Eric Graham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Veerabhadran Ramanathan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

N.R., V.R. and I.H.R. designed the original version of this study. All authors contributed to refinement of the original design and conception of the field study. I.H.R. led the field study; J.M. and T.R. collected data in the field; and J.M. led the payments to women. T.R. and N.R. led the sensor deployment; and T.R., N.R. and E.G. conducted the data analysis. T.R., N.R. and V.R. took the lead in writing the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nithya Ramanathan.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 3583 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ramanathan, T., Ramanathan, N., Mohanty, J. et al. Wireless sensors linked to climate financing for globally affordable clean cooking. Nature Clim Change 7, 44–47 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3141

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3141

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing