Electric and Biogas Stoves as Options for Cooking in Nepal and Thailand

Solid biomass accounts for eighty percent cooking share in Nepal whereas in Thailand it accounts for nearly 40%. With the increase in income of the people in urban as well as rural areas, fuel switching from biomass to LPG for cooking has been the most prevalent. Domestic hydropower resources in Nepal have remained unutilized. Electricity based cooking is one of the option to reduce fossil fuel consumption in Nepal. Likewise, the use of biogas in rural areas can be another option to reduce LPG consumption as well as fuelwood consumption. In the case of Thailand, nearly 60 percent cooking is attributed to LPG based cooking. Shift from LPG to electric and biogas based cooking can reduce its dependency on LPG as well as dependence on biomass resources. This study aims to develop a business as usual (BAU) scenario and various levels of electric and biogas based cooking scenarios to analyze its implication on primary energy use, energy mix, electricity generation requirement and GHG emissions during 2010-2050 in the case of Nepal and Thailand. The study uses Asia-Pacific Integrated Model (AIM)/Enduse model, a long-term bottom-up energy system model as an analytical tool. In Nepal, fuelwood would remain the dominant source of energy during 2010-2050 in the residential sector in BAU. The consumption of imported fossil fuels would decrease with the use of electricity and biogas for cooking while that of domestic hydropower would increase. In the case of Thailand, the consumption of LPG would decrease while that of coal and natural gas would increase due to additional power generation. The national GHG emission level would decrease in the case of Nepal whereas it would increase in the case of Thailand.