Still providing our customers with free light, heat and energy

December 19, 2024 3:11 AM

Solar-powered cookers are revolutionizing energy access and transforming communities in Rwanda.
posted by rory (15 comments total)

And yes, I couldn't resist a Montgomery Burns reference in the post title. Although I don't think he's ever made it to Kigali.
posted by rory at 3:55 AM on December 19

The best kind of beanplating.
posted by rory at 4:10 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Is this an RCT that was run? If so this is huge finding given that previous well powered RCTs on solar energy use in places like India has no effect on any downstream outcomes.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:27 AM on December 19

The "transforming communities" link has more detail about the research. I suspect these latest findings aren't published yet, but here are two earlier papers by the lead researchers.
posted by rory at 5:35 AM on December 19

FYI no RCT here, at least in the published papers.

Other related work:

This article assesses the socioeconomic effects of solar microgrids. The lack of access to electricity is a major obstacle to the socioeconomic development of more than a billion people. Off-grid solar technologies hold potential as an affordable and clean solution to satisfy basic electricity needs. We conducted a randomized field experiment in India to estimate the causal effect of off-grid solar power on electricity access and broader socioeconomic development of 1281 rural households. Within a year, electrification rates in the treatment group increased by 29 to 36 percentage points. Daily hours of access to electricity increased only by 0.99 to 1.42 hours, and the confidence intervals are wide. Kerosene expenditure on the black market decreased by 47 to 49 rupees per
month. Despite these strong electrification and expenditure effects, we found no systematic evidence for changes in savings, spending, business creation, time spent working or studying, or other broader indicators of socioeconomic development.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:51 AM on December 19

The Rwanda research reads like a longitudinal mixed methods study with a focus on lifestyle improvements rather than broader indicators of socioeconomic development. Reduced firewood consumption, improved indoor air quality, savings in time: those are all big wins—air quality especially, for improving people's health, but also in taking the pressure off local sources of firewood.
posted by rory at 6:03 AM on December 19 [8 favorites]

And isn't less woodsmoke in the air kind of axiomatically a benefit to the environment?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:15 AM on December 19 [3 favorites]

To my eye, the intended study outputs were thoughtfully considered for what they could reasonably expect to achieve and contribute. This is a small study, but promising for tangible quality-of-life improvements for affected households. The devil's in scale, as it usually is, so fingers crossed the financing information is persuasive. Improving indoor air quality is such an important benefit for people's well being.
posted by EvaDestruction at 6:56 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

I’m amazed that they didn’t randomize treatment here, as best I can tell. What’s the point of doing all these interventions if we are just guessing at what the effects will be?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:00 AM on December 19

I love these kinds of sneaky little improvements that have big effects.
posted by srboisvert at 9:49 AM on December 19

"Community members of East Kayonza, an area where many experience energy challenges, reported profound lifestyle improvements" is the point, actually (from the ESI link). Which validates the researchers' hypothesis and points toward further areas of investigation, in accordance with the scientific method.

Also, the ethics of randomization in this kind of social/cultural experiment is pretty fraught. RCT (randomized controlled trial) works best when you can properly control for variables, which is challenging in lab settings and arguably impossible in the field.

Anyway, these seem like great projects with global relevance. Low wattage, clean, safe cooking setups could benefit many rural, impoverished, and exploited people around the world, including here in the US.
posted by radiogreentea at 10:50 AM on December 19 [5 favorites]

I’m amazed that they didn’t randomize treatment here, as best I can tell.

You don't really need to do a double-blind or random test for this sort of thing because your "non-intervention" groups are all around, and while some of the reported improvements are anecdotal, things like measured air quality in areas where these cookers are available are quite unambiguous improvements.
posted by tclark at 12:38 PM on December 19 [5 favorites]

Also, you can't randomize 20 people. This is a pretty small scale intervention, and I would assume it's much more about actually following up with people's experiences in order to inform projects that are trying to actually do widespread deployment.
posted by ambrosen at 12:43 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

You don't really need to do a double-blind or random test for this sort of thing because your "non-intervention" groups are all around,

Also, we have known the benefits of this technology since 1970. The effects only grow larger.

There are also large benefits to electrifying the unites states away from intermittent oil and gas power, as well. I know my own community has benefited from solar microgrids, if only by a metric of mitigating the recurrent power outages from gas fired power.

The reason we have to have studies at all is the dominance of the oil lobby that doesn't want to lose market share, as well as utilities who have consolidated political power, that we have to cloak this in scientific language
posted by eustatic at 5:55 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

These are photovoltaic-electric cooker setups, which the story calls “solar powered e-cookers,” as opposed to the solar thermal cookers in use since the ‘70s.

While a solar thermal cooker is less complex and more energy efficient than these photovoltaic-electric cookers, solar thermal cooking is a tricky art that can only be used on specific sorts of dishes, mostly vegetarian stews. And it requires a lot of supervisory labor, which is why adoption has been limited.

These e-cookers apply the direct DC output of the photovoltaic panel to a resistance heater in a thermal battery. It’s about as simple as an electric appliance can get. This setup can provide a range of consistent temperatures, and e-cookers are versatile and easy to learn. It blows my mind that PV is now cheap enough that these e-cookers can outcompete wood on cost, when amortized over a fairly short period of time.
posted by Headfullofair at 11:12 AM on December 20 [1 favorite]