East Bay Residential & Commercial Cooking Electrification

The State of California has set an ambitious goal in 2017 to double the energy efficiency savings of energy end uses, which include electricity and natural gas, by 2030 (SB 350). This effort was complemented by another goal set in 2018 to completely decarbonize the state’s electricity grid by 2045 (SB 100). These goals were established in response to, and in recognition of, California’s (and the rest of the world’s) legacy energy system. Our energy systems are still largely characterized by fossil fuel consumption in electricity production, despite great leaps and advances in technological and economic viabilities of renewable energy. Much of this has to do with end use demands, such as cooking appliances, which still utilize fossil fuels and require legacy infrastructure to stay in operation.

To help achieve the California’s aggressive decarbonization targets, one strategy is to transition natural gas end uses to electricity. Fossil fuel combustion, including natural gas, is an inefficient process that loses a majority of its potential energy as heat to the surrounding air, while producing harmful emissions such as greenhouse gasses (GHG), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), and particulate matter (PM 2.5), which are leading causes of preventable respiratory illnesses and deaths among American households. According to an estimate, as in the staff report recommending a stringent energy code adoption in 2021 for the City of Emeryville in California, the electrification of residential gas appliances could reduce 354 deaths, 304 cases of chronic bronchitis, and $3.5 billion dollars in monetized health benefits over a year in the State of California alone.*

Induction technology that use electricity is highly efficient (more than double of natural gas) compared to fossil fuel combustion, which also remove point-source emissions of harmful gasses and particulate matter that pollute indoor environments. However, induction cooking has long faced low adoption rate in American households and businesses compared to its Asian and European counterparts, where energy efficiency is highly valued. Due to a negative image facilitated by conventional electric resistance and coil cooking appliances, induction technology remains largely unknown to the general public despite the technology’s market presence since the 1990s. Moreover, available data from various surveys, focus groups, and publications point to and help confirm anecdotal evidences from the field, that this lack of exposure to, and understanding of, the induction technology among the general population drives resistance and hesitation to its wide adoption.

A part of my work focuses on community outreach, education, and deployment of clean and energy-efficient cooking technologies to East Bay residents and businesses, many of whom suffer from poor air quality near the Port of Oakland, the wildfires that continue to ravage northern California’s natural and man-made ecosystems, and the indoor air pollution from intense fossil fuel use. Complete transition to clean and energy-efficient electric cooking technologies in the near term is unlikely, due to many challenges in the building and planning codes, limitations of electric systems in existing buildings, cost recovery concerns for sunk investments in the natural gas infrastructure, opposition from various stakeholder groups, and financing issues for electricity infrastructure upgrades. However, transitioning end uses is key to eventual clean energy transitions, by removing the need to keep legacy energy infrastructures in operation.