Climate and health benefits of a transition from gas to electric cooking

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301061120. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Carlos F. Gould , M. Lorena Bejarano, Brandon de la Cuesta, Darby W. Jack, Samuel B. Schlesinger, Alfredo Valarezo, Marshall Burke

Abstract

Household electrification is thought to be an important part of a carbon neutral future, and could also have additional benefits to adopting households such as improved air quality. However, the effectiveness of specific electrification policies in reducing total emissions and boosting household livelihoods remains a crucial open question in both developed and developing countries. We investigated a transition of more than 750,000 households from gas to electric cookstoves - one of the most popular residential electrification strategies - in Ecuador following a program that promoted induction stoves, and assessed its impacts on electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and health. We estimate that the program resulted in a 5% increase in total residential electricity consumption between 2015 and 2021. By offsetting a commensurate amount of cooking gas combustion, we find that the program likely modestly reduced national greenhouse gas emissions, thanks in part to the country's electricity grid being 89% hydropower in later parts of the time period. Increased induction stove uptake was also associated with declines in all-cause and respiratory-related hospitalizations nationwide. These findings suggest that when the electricity grid is largely powered by renewables, gas-to-induction cooking transitions represent a promising way of amplifying the health and climate co-benefits of net-carbon-zero policies.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X59Q1T

Subjects

Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies

Keywords

residential electrification, climate change, policy evaluation, environmental epidemiology, climate change, policy evaluation, environmental epidemiology

Dates

Published: 2023-01-26 05:23

Last Updated: 2023-01-26 13:23

License

CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Conflict of interest statement:
None

Data Availability (Reason not available):
Data will be made publicly available upon publication.