The Reducing Charcoal Consumption Through Improved Cookstoves (RCCTIC) and Building Pathways to Electric Cooking (BPTEC) activities aim to build transition pathways to fully electric cooking in Ghana. The RCCTIC activity aims to distribute locally manufactured, high-quality, improved charcoal stoves (ICS) to Ghanaians who have no viable alternative fuel source for daily cooking.

With this approach, UpEnergy aims to meet customers wherever they are on their journey up the energy ladder. Thereby, the initiative is designed to provide the most suitable cooking technology at prices that are both affordable and accessible. This approach not only ensures customer buy-in but also promotes sustained adoption and consistent usage. The necessary subsidies to make this possible are funded by the carbon revenues derived from the sale of Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs).

RCCTIC will cover the regions of Greater Accra, Eastern and Central Ghana, whilst BPTEC will additionally cover the Ashanti region in Ghana.

The carbon revenue is intended to be used for:

1. local technical capacity building, focused on manufacturing high-quality ICS using local partners and materials,

2. the build-out of a large-scale, last-mile distribution network, incorporating a digital CRM tool and training of distribution agents,

3. investment in awareness campaigns to break down barriers to electric cooking adoption (i.e. lack of awareness of efficiency & fuel-saving benefits; misconceptions around food taste and cooking times; complexity of use; etc.),

4. set-up of a data monitoring platform to enable digital monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV), which ensures high quality, transparent data on technology usage within the family home.

The mitigation activity will distribute 175,000 improved charcoal stoves, which have a 52% thermal efficiency (ISO lab tested). This will result in financial savings for the families thanks to reduced fuel-use.

The stoves will be locally manufactured in Ghana, upskilling the local population, creating both direct and indirect employment and stimulating the local economy by using locally source materials in the manufacturing process.

To ensure transparent and accurate emission-reduction reporting, thermal sensors will monitor a share of the improved charcoal stoves (ICS), capturing real cooking events in households. This approach greatly increases the precision and integrity of the emission-reduction calculations.

The activitiy applies a conservative and rigorous approach to calculating emission reductions. This includes quarterly monitoring through Kitchen Performance Tests for both baseline and project households, separate sampling frameworks for urban and rural areas, sensors that capture real cooking events, and the use of conservative emission factors. Additional conservative adjustments are also applied to account for market-based distribution and to ensure the robustness and reliability of reported reductions.

• UpEnergy Group and its local subsidiary, UpEnergy Ghana Ltd, work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Ghana, the Ministry of Energy, and the Energy Commission to bring a meaningful, locally relevant project to 150,000 households (approximately 0.5 million Ghanaians). 

• UpEnergy Group has worked closely with the Federal Office for the Environment FOEN to ensure the utmost rigorous, conservative and transparent design and carbon accounting protocol for this mitigation activity.

• The INDC and NDC published by Ghana in 2015 and 2021 respectively, mention "Expand the adoption of market-based cleaner cooking solutions" as a part of INDC policy actions which supports the national policy measures "Sustainable Energy Action Plan", "National Natural Gas Master Plan", and "National LPG Programme".

• This project activity can help reduce direct stress on natural resources, reduce direct emission of toxic pollutants and in return improve Social Inclusion, Sustainable Energy Transition and develop Smart Communities with improved living conditions. All of which are mentioned in Ghana’s NDC.

• Without carbon revenues, affordability issues will continue to persist as the key barrier to increased adoption rates of high quality, efficient ICS.

• As such, the carbon revenues from the sale of mitigation outcomes are critical to help unlock access and drive mass-scale awareness and adoption of cleaner cooking technologies.

• Early and continuous engagement with different governmental departments and local NGOs in the clean cooking space in Ghana, have enabled UpEnergy to design mitigation activities that are in line with NDC requirements but lack funding or technical accessibility.

• 175,000 households in peri-urban and rural areas in Greater Accra, eastern and central regions will benefit from this activity. There are households from the lower-income class that would otherwise not be able to access or afford these technologies.

• The carbon revenue from KliK Foundation’s contribution will enable these technologies to be subsidised more than 50% and, in this way, reach those households that would not otherwise be able to afford them.