Electrifying Indian Kitchens

Why in News?

India spends $26.4 billion a year importing cooking gas, cooking with electricity is now cheaper than cooking with unsubsidised LPG, but moving hundreds of millions of kitchens from flame to wire raises a chain of questions about cost, grid stress, and who pays when demand spikes.

Why is gas-based clean cooking hitting a wall?

• Growth of Domestic LPG connections – It grew from 150 million in 2015 to 332 million by 2025.
• But India imports 60% of its LPG and 50% of its natural gas, yet 37% of households still burn firewood and dung.
• Rising import cost – The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) estimates that the combined import bill hit $26.4 billion in FY24–25 — a 50% jump in six years.
• Geopolitical Vulnerability – Every West Asian escalation sends a price shock straight into Indian kitchens.

Can electricity beat gas on cost, efficiency, and everyday cooking?

• Advantage of Electric Cooking – An IEEFA study found that electric cooking is 37% cheaper than non-subsidised LPG and 14% cheaper than piped natural gas for a family of four in Delhi — without any electricity subsidy.
• Only PM Ujjwala Yojana’s heavily subsidised LPG is cheaper, but that subsidy costs the government thousands of crores annually.
• Efficiency Gap – Induction cooktops transfer about 85% of energy to the vessel; an LPG burner manages roughly 40%.
• Electric pressure cookers, tested across the MECS programme’s multi-country cooking diaries, use less energy than any other device assessed.
• Cooking Complexity in India – Indian meals often require multi‑pot cooking (chapatis, tadka, dal simultaneously), knows that a standard single-plate induction unit is insufficient.
• TERI advocates for R&D on multi-pot and flame-replicating induction models as a precursor for mass adoption, explaining why electric cooking was only 5% in 2021.
• Urban First Strategy – Both International Institute of Sustainable Development and IEEFA recommend starting with urban kitchens, freeing imported LPG for rural areas that still lack reliable electricity.

What is a ‘peak,’ and what does a utility do when demand outstrips supply?

• Peak – Electricity use rises and falls through the day; it climbs around 3 p.m. and again between 9–11 p.m., when households switch on lights, fans, TVs, and ACs together, this surge in demand is called the “peak.”
• Rising Peak Demand – India’s peak demand rose from 148 GW in 2014 to a record 242.5 GW in December 2025.
• For every degree rise in average daily temperature, peak demand now increases by more than 7 GW, according to the IEA.
• Options when demand spikes supply – When discoms face demand beyond contracted supply, they can
  • Buy power on the spot market, prices jump from ₹3.50/unit to ₹9–10/unit during peaks.
  • Run gas-based peaking plants, costly but quick.
  • Release stored hydropower.
  • Dispatch grid-scale batteries, e.g., BSES Rajdhani in Delhi’s first commercial battery storage.
  • Impose load shedding — planned blackouts, disruptive and penalised by regulators.
• E-Cooking Challenge – Adding millions of induction cooktops to that evening peak would steepen the evening peak, raise spot-market costs, and increase the risk of outages.
• The question is not whether to electrify, but how to electrify without overwhelming the grid.
• That is where automated demand response (ADR) enters the picture.

Can smart technology flatten the peak automatically?

• OpenADR – It is a two-way communication standard that enables automated participation of smart thermostats, EV chargers, water heaters, cooktops in demand response, ancillary services (frequency/voltage), and DER coordination.
• These devices then adjust their consumption automatically, without anyone having to lift a finger.
• Origin – Born from California’s 2002 energy crisis, its latest version plugs into modern energy systems using standard web protocols.
• India’s Early Deployment – Tata Power Delhi Distribution ran the country’s first OpenADR pilot across 167 commercial and industrial consumers, achieving an average peak reduction of 14%.
• The studies suggest 7% peak shaving if scaled across all Indian buildings.
• Global Use – South Korea’s Auto DR pilot cut electricity use by 24%; such programmes typically pay for themselves within four years by deferring the cost of new grid infrastructure.
• Challenges
  • Discoms still lack is the full stack – OpenADR-compliant servers, smart-meter-embedded receivers, and aggregator platforms that can orchestrate distributed loads into virtual power plants.
  • Households as Grid Participants – Building this stack is only half the solution, the other half is turning households into active grid participants.
  • From passive consumers into active participants alongside upgrading households load capacity from 3 kW to 5 kW through investment in transformers and feeder infrastructure.

Can rooftop solar and neighbourhood trading take the pressure off the grid?

• Prosumer – A rooftop solar panel paired with a battery turns a household into a ‘prosumer’ both producer and consumer.
• The panel generates power by day; the battery stores the surplus; and the stored energy is discharged in the evening to run the induction cooktop.
• This offsets precisely the peak that mass e-cooking would otherwise create.
• Global evidence – A 2025 Australian study found that combining rooftop solar, batteries, and off‑peak scheduling halved peak load & cut grid reinforcement costs by 75%.
• India’s Rooftop Push – Solar capacity is projected to more than double from 24 GW in 2026 to over 41 GW by 2030, boosted by the PM-Surya Ghar Yojana, which aims to give 300 units of free electricity to 10 million households.
• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Trading – P2P trading lets a household sell excess electricity directly to a neighbour using a digital platform, bypassing the traditional discom route.
• India ran South Asia’s first blockchain-based P2P solar trading pilot in Lucknow.
  • Led by the India Smart Grid Forum and Australia’s Powerledger
  • Under a regulatory sandbox approved by the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission.
• Result - a 43% reduction in the energy buy price compared with the retail tariff.
• The pilot’s success led Uttar Pradesh to direct all its utilities to make provisions for P2P trading — a first for any State.
• In February 2026, Centre announced a P2P facility under the India Energy Stack for Delhi and western UP.
• Neighbourhood Micro Power Plants – If a cluster of homes on a single feeder can trade solar surpluses during the evening cooking hours
  • the local peak flattens,
  • the discom avoids buying expensive exchange power, and
  • the neighbourhood effectively becomes a micro virtual power plant.

What needs to happen, and how soon?

• Global Policy – New York’s All-Electric Buildings Act mandates all-electric new construction under 7 storeys from Jan 2026, taller buildings by 2029.
• India’s groundwork
  • Go Electric campaign & National Efficient Cooking Programme target 2 million induction stoves
  • BEE launched star labelling for induction hobs
  • PM-Surya Ghar Yojana links rooftop solar linked to household savings.
• Redirect subsidies – Estimated Rs.40,000 crore annual LPG subsidy towards one-time capital support for induction cooktops.
• Bulk procurement – Expand EESL’s bulk-procurement model to e-cooking appliances.
• Smart tariffs & Tech standards – Mandate time-of-use tariffs for e-cooking and require OpenADR compatibility in new appliances and smart meters.
• R&D push – Fund on multi-pot induction technology designed for Indian cooking.
• Construction norms – Mandate all-electric new residential buildings in Tier-1 cities.

What lies ahead?

• Geopolitical risk & Economic sovereignty – Every dollar we spend on LPG imports goes through a supply chain that’s completely exposed to Hormuz choke points and whatever the oil producers decide to do that week.
• Transitioning from imported fuel to homegrown power is not just energy policy — it’s national sovereignty.
• Urban India is the obvious place to start this shift.
• The question is whether the policy framework will catch up before the next oil shock forces the issue.

Reference

The Hindu | Why India must electrify its kitchens at scale?