Ben Jeffreys, CEO of ATEC, said that the new clean cooking technology are bringing a lot of transformation in the use of energy. ATEC, a startup company which has experience in e-Cooking and Biogas in Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh, shares its experiences with Nepalese entrepreneurs, activist and representatives of the organizations working in this sector

Organized by Renewable Energy Confederation of Nepal (RECON, various persons working in renewable energy, clean cooking and financial institution attended the talk program

Addressing the program CEO Ben Jeffreys shared ATEC expertise supportive to clean cooking movement in Nepal and business development on clean cooking devices especially electric induction cooktops and small biogas plants.

He also talked how ATEC expertise supportive to clean cooking movement in Nepal and business development on clean cooking devices especially electric induction cooktops and small biogas plants.

He said that globally cooking with wood kills roughly 3x as many people each year as traffic accidents – with the majority of fatalities being women. “ATEC's patented products deliver Tier-5 modern cooking solutions to households that are affordable through paygo technology. IoT functionality enhance user experience, improve service and support impact measurement and converting farm waste into safe and clean biogas for daily cooking needs, "said Ben.

ATEC now serves over 25,000 people with modern cooking and has over 50 staff across Cambodia, Bangladesh and Australia. With a lean start-up model, ATEC is using disruptive technology, best practice eCommerce methods and data to drive decisions at every level.

“ ATEC is able to acquire customers rapidly while achieving high customer satisfaction leading to sustained behavior change. The convertible note bridge funding is predominantly being used to prepare for global expansion of eCook ATEC’s market leading paygo and IoT electromagnetic induction technology. These investors join previous organizations who have supported ATEC such as Google, Engie RDE, USAID & EnDev,” said Ben Jeffreys.

“Our analysis shows that electric cooking is best placed to become the #1 cooking solution globally given the average 50% running cost of LPG, user safety and production scalability,” says Ben Jeffreys. “10 years ago electric cooking wouldn’t be feasible for many emerging markets given the lack of access to electricity. However this has impressively changed across Asia and Africa, with Bangladesh earlier this year announcing that 100% of households now have access to electricity. This is a dramatic improvement from a connectivity rate of just 47%, 13 years ago and we see similar electrification trends in other emerging markets in Asia and Africa.”

The other development area the bridge round is supporting, is ATEC’s carbon credit market capability. ATEC is already a registered Gold Standard carbon credit provider in biogas and its new product range eCook will become the first cookstove product globally to be registered under Gold Standard’s new IoT Methodology. ATEC’s Gold Standard carbon credits will be highly verified, trackable in real time and will lead to even lower costs for customers further accelerating ATEC’s expansion and ability to serve more people on lower incomes.

“According to a 2021 report by McKinsey, demand for voluntary carbon credits is expected to grow 15x by 2030, then 100x by 2050 as many companies, governments and other large emitters move towards their net zero goals,” says Ben Jeffreys. “ATEC plans to be the global leader in offering a hardware + carbon credit + paygo solution to distributors across Asia and Africa at scale - driving accessibility to modern cooking solutions while simultaneously generating high-quality carbon credits. It’s this ‘flywheel effect’ of utilizing carbon revenues to drive down household cooking costs that will bring modern cooking to every person on the planet.”

Presenting Nepal’s situation Subarna Kapali from Ajummery Bikas Foundation presented Nepal’s scenario focusing on the overall use of Bio-gas plant to generate the clean energy for cooking. Kapali said that Nepal is in the process of transformation in cooking energy.

Moderated by president Guna Raj Dhakal, Chairperson of RECON, Bhuwan Khanal from Nepal Biogas Promotion Association said that Nepal has currently 450,000 bio-gas plant in the country. He said that Nepal can welcome any technology which can enhance the present model.

Kushal Gurung, an bio-gas entrepreneur, highlighted the challenges faced by private sectors in Nepal in saling the bio-gas generated in the country.

?“Solving clean cooking is not just a social impact problem for 4 billion people, but also a $40bn total addressable market and a gigaton carbon credit market opportunity as well,” says ATEC CEO, Ben Jeffreys. “By synchronising the commercial, carbon credit and social impact opportunities together, we are firm in our belief that solving clean cooking for 4 billion people by 2030 is a realistic goal with ATEC leading this charge globally.”

Wrapping up the interactions, Karuna Bajracharya from Clean Cooking Alliance said that the devices produced by ATEC is reasonably good in terms of price and it is better in terms of technology.

She said that Nepal’s electric cooking and bio-gas both need more appliances and devices to change the current state of use of energy.