Modern Energies Services for Cooking: from Improved Cook-Stoves to Domestic and Community Biogas Based Systems

Abstract

Energy is crucial for a better quality of life and for sustainable human development. This has been demonstrated in previous chapters. It has been widely recognized that food and water security, productivity, health, education, climate change, and communication services are greatly affected by the quality and the quantity of energy services. The lack of or insufficient access to clean, affordable, reliable energy carriers is a major obstacle to reduce poverty and to improve the conditions and standard of living for the majority of the world’s population, thus hindering economic and social development [1–4]. Increasing access to sustainable and modern energy services will enable income generation; it will also reduce the time and drudgery of collecting fuel wood; support cleaner and more efficient cooking and heating options; and finally, it could also provide indoor lighting security at night, thus enabling children to study in the evenings [3, 5–12]. Yet many in the world, especially in the developing countries, still have insufficient access to sustainable energy services. This chapter presents Improved Cook-Stoves (ICS) and domestic biogas plants as technological options to improve access to sustainable energy services at both the household and community levels. The relevance of the technology, its performances, impacts and dissemination are discussed.