BURN Secures Us$ 15 Million To Scale Electric Cooking In East Africa
BURN, the manufacturer of clean cooking stoves has secured a US$15 million investment from the European Investment Bank (EIB).
The investment was announced during the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Washington.
This funding will accelerate BURN’s efforts to manufacture and distribute its IoT-enabled ECOA electric cooking appliances to over 1 million households in East Africa.
The ECOA Induction Cooker (IDC) is equipped with innovative Pay As You Cook (PAYC) technology, integrated directly with mobile money payment systems and the ECOA Mobile App. This allows users to pay small amounts via their mobile phones, gradually acquiring their cooking devices through daily or weekly installments, achieving full ownership within a year. The ECOA IDC is bundled with a high-quality 3-piece stainless steel induction cookware set, that is fully manufactured in Kenya.
ECOA IDC generates high-integrity carbon credits by using integrated cellular-enabled IoT technology which allows for real-time monitoring of energy usage. Each ECOA IDC reduces ~2.5 tonnes of carbon emissions annually and will contribute to EIB’s climate action, gender equality, and economic development objectives.
“BURN has already brought our unique PAYC electric cooking solution to thousands of households in Kenya and Tanzania that were previously relying on traditional charcoal stoves. ” Peter Scott, Founder and CEO of BURN, said.
This investment by EIB will help us transition over a million low-income households to cooking with electricity, allowing them to cook on grids that are 80-95% powered by renewable energy.”
BURN’s cookstoves have been shown to provide significant benefits including fuel savings of 39% against the baseline, savings of US$119 per year to families. Each cookstove is also said to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 3.5 tons per year.
To date, BURN says it has distributed over 5 million clean cookstoves across Africa, transforming the lives of over 25 million people and preventing 26 million tons of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere.
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