The investment will support the development of cookstove designs that allow users to burn wood or crop residues efficiently and with less smoke than open fires and traditional stoves to improve livelihoods.
DOE said energy-efficient cookstoves also reduce fuel use, slow deforestation, and reduce the time families have to spend collecting fuel.
DOE secretary Steven Chu said although significant progress has already been achieved in designing cookstoves with reduced emissions and increased efficiency, many challenges remain to develop high performing technologies that are also affordable, durable, easy-to-use, and meet international indoor air quality guidelines.
"The funding opportunity announced today will help address these challenges, accelerating the widespread adoption of clean cooking technologies and developing a global market that builds on DOE investments in clean energy innovations," Chu said.
The DOE, along with other federal agencies, is a founding partner of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership to advance cookstove technologies that improve indoor air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and deliver important benefits for people’s health and the economies of developing nations across the globe.
It has made an additional request to Congress for $2.5m in the next year to support clean cookstove technologies.
