Cooking and food are core to culture in South Sudan. It’s what brings families and communities together. However over 99% of the country utilizes charcoal and firewood for cooking, often in dark, cramped, unventilated spaces. These fuels are burdensome and expensive and can lead to significant negative impacts:

• 10,300+ deaths annually in South Sudan from indoor air pollution, particularly from cooking fuels
• 4-5 hours per day spent gathering fuel and preparing meals
• Upwards of 20% of income is spent on cooking fuels
• 1-2% annual loss in natural forests

In parallel with the microgrid project in Wanyjok, SunGate also enabled an innovative electric cooking pilot project powered by the SunGate Solar microgrid in Wanyjok which conducted controlled cooking experiments adapting South Sudanese cooking to electric pressure cookers (EPCs) and deployed electric pressure cookers for 25 participants in Wanyjok. SunGate also deployed EPCs for its own operations and now SunGate offers eCooking to its customers throughout the country!

The innovative research has found:

• High compatibility of South Sudan cuisine.
• 15-50% cost savings (at $0.60/kWh) and 25-85% time savings for EPCs compared to charcoal for sampled meals.
• 100% of participants highlighted that they liked how fast the EPC cooked especially compared to charcoal and woodfuels.
• 32% of the participants also highlighted that the EPC had “no stress” when cooking and an additional 16% of participants highlighted the benefit of no smoke when cooking.