Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Deploy SUNSPOT‚Ñ¢ solar electric cooking systems to target markets as a cost-effective and clean alternative to traditional biomass cookstoves. The SUNSPOT provides enough energy for a family of six to cook daily meals, as well as energy for lighting and mobile phone charging. Solar electric cooking leads to improved health of the women and children exposed to toxic cooking smoke, and reduces the burden of collecting fuel and building/maintaining cooking fires, so it will lead to improved productivity and enhanced opportunities for education. 
The business will be a hybrid cooperative / franchise-style model with extensive contributions by local partners.

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The WHO estimates that three billion people around the world continue to cook with biomass fuels. Women are overwhelming responsible for the cooking process, and children are often brought in through necessity or simply proximity. The result is that the health of these women and children is constantly at risk due to the toxic fumes from cooking fires and from the dangers of open flames causing burns or even house fires. In many cases women and girls spend hours each day collect increasing scare wood for cooking. In other cases, purchased charcoal is contributing to deforestation and consequent cropland erosion. This applies to both rural villages in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central-South America as well as to household in poor peri-urban areas which continue to rely on biomass for cooking. 
Using highly efficient electric cooking appliances such as induction cooktops and electric pressure cookers offer a clean, viable alternative to traditional three-stone fires and even improved wood and charcoal cookstoves. The dramatic fall in the cost of solar-electric (photovoltaic or PV) modules and the availability of Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) microfinancing means that using solar as an alternative to biomass can be cost competitive. The improved health and increased productivity of the women and children most involved in cooking, combined with reduced environmental pressures, means that rural communities can focus more on improved agricultural productivity, better access to schooling, and a better life through increased leisure. 
The SUNSPOT is designed to be assemble, installed and maintain in the target country, so it also adds employment opportunities. We have started discussions with Solar Sister about using their network of women entrepreneurs to be part of the SUNSPOT ecosystem.

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