Department of Earth System Science, Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Institute for Energy and Materials Research, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Aug 22;120(34):e2301061120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2301061120. Epub 2023 Aug 15.
Household electrification is thought to be an important part of a carbon-neutral future and could also have additional benefits to adopting households such as improved air quality. However, the effectiveness of specific electrification policies in reducing total emissions and boosting household livelihoods remains a crucial open question in both developed and developing countries. We investigated a transition of more than 750,000 households from gas to electric cookstoves-one of the most popular residential electrification strategies-in Ecuador following a program that promoted induction stoves and assessed its impacts on electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and health. We estimate that the program resulted in a 5% increase in total residential electricity consumption between 2015 and 2021. By offsetting a commensurate amount of cooking gas combustion, we find that the program likely reduced national greenhouse gas emissions, thanks in part to the country's electricity grid being 80% hydropower in later parts of the time period. Increased induction stove uptake was also associated with declines in all-cause and respiratory-related hospitalizations nationwide. These findings suggest that, when the electricity grid is largely powered by renewables, gas-to-induction cooking transitions represent a promising way of amplifying the health and climate cobenefits of net-carbon-zero policies.
家庭电气化被认为是碳中和未来的重要组成部分，对采用电气化的家庭来说还可能带来改善空气质量等额外好处。然而，在发达国家和发展中国家，具体的电气化政策在减少总排放量和提高家庭生活水平方面的有效性仍然是一个关键的悬而未决的问题。我们调查了厄瓜多尔超过 75 万户家庭从煤气灶向电磁炉过渡的情况，这是最受欢迎的住宅电气化策略之一，此前该国有一个推广感应炉灶的项目，并评估了其对电力消耗、温室气体排放和健康的影响。我们估计，该项目导致 2015 年至 2021 年期间住宅用电量增加了 5%。由于该国电网在后期 80%由水电供电，因此通过抵消相应数量的烹饪煤气燃烧，我们发现该项目可能减少了国家温室气体排放。感应炉使用率的提高也与全国范围内全因和与呼吸有关的住院率下降有关。这些发现表明，当电网主要由可再生能源供电时，从煤气灶到感应炉的转变代表了一种有前途的方式，可以放大净零碳政策的健康和气候协同效益。
