The impact of pot lids on household energy use

Over 2 billion of the world’s population depend on biomass for cooking fuel due to financial and geographical reasons. Cooking with biomass leads to several problems such as indoor air pollution, respiratory diseases, greenhouse gas and particulate emissions, and a burden of gathering fuel – usually for women and girls. This problem is especially common in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. For decades, several national and international efforts have been made to improve the efficiency of cooking with biomass in order to reduce these problems. However, the interventions are fraught with challenges and do not always have the desired effects. Currently, the majority of clean cooking interventions focus on improving biomass cookstove efficiency, but there is a need for a more robust methodology. Cooking practices play a large role in fuel consumption and should be taken into consideration. This research project seeks to examine the effect of one of such user interventions – the use of pot lids. Understanding the effect that pot lids have on cooking efficiency and fuel consumption will enable a better understanding of clean cooking as a whole and inform the development of better solutions