Mr. Juan James Mandy will present his APS as per the details:
Date: 26th September 2025 (Friday)
Time: 1730 - 1900 hrs.
Venue: Meeting Room 213, 2nd Floor, DESE
Guide: Prof. Anand B. Rao
RPC Members: Prof. Bakul Rao, Prof. Anish Modi
Title: Comparison of cooking energy systems relevant to Rural India
Abstract:
Cooking plays a very important role in the daily lives of households and is responsible for various kinds of environmental, economic and social impacts. Particulate matter released due to combustion of fuel used for cooking (eg. wood) impact the health of household residents, majorly women and children. There are various impacts associated with the use of cookware and cooking energy technologies. Some of the clean energy technologies face issues with cost or social acceptability. Eventually, it is crucial to understand that there is an energy ladder that appropriately defines the choice of cooking energy technologies in households, mostly based on income and affordability. A household's choice of fuels is influenced by multiple factors that include affordability, education, social status and accessibility. Generally environmental impacts are least prioritized at a local level in rural India. This study tries to look into all kinds of impacts to have a generic understanding on the same. The aim of the current review was to understand the past and current scenario in the cooking energy technologies sector, to find the pros and cons of various cooking energy technologies as well as to find the general and field based attributes associated with these technologies.
It could be understood that most of the rural regions were using solids as a fuel (e.g. dung, crop residues, charcoal, wood etc.,), which was primarily the cause for various environmental and health related issues. The Government of India initially tried to improve this with the help of Improved Biomass cook stove and later with LPG through the PMUY initiative. The current study identifies immense potential in upcoming renewable technologies such as solar based cooking and biogas based cooking. The scenario with respect to the use of electricity based cooking is in its initial stages and would take some time to establish. This is also dependent on the level of electrification and cost optimization. Further, this study identifies a few technical and optimization characteristics that could eventually improve the efficiency and sustainability of these existent cooking energy technologies which could help achieve the triple bottom line of sustainability.