Scaling up access to electric cooking solutions for households in Zambia

MCFA is supporting UpEnergy to scale up clean electric cooking solutions for households across the country in Zambia.

MCFA has signed a new agreement with UpEnergy Zambia, part of the UpEnergy Group, a social enterprise operating across eight African countries, including the DRC, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

UpEnergy Zambia delivers high-efficiency electric cookers designed specifically for African households, combining faster cooking times – up to twice as fast as traditional biomass fuels. The electric cookers offer families economic as well as health benefits by reducing household fuel costs and indoor air pollution associated with traditional cooking methods.

MCFA is supporting UpEnergy Zambia’s scale up with approx. EUR 1 million in funding. The company plans to distribute up to 40,600 electric cookers by the end of 2029. UpEnergy will focus on supporting grid-connected households in urban areas, where the majority of the population already has electricity access but still relies heavily on charcoal and wood for cooking.

“We’re grateful for MCFA’s continued support and confidence in our work, which is allowing us to take the next step in scaling electric cooking in Zambia,” comments Rygard Ntemena, Country Director, UpEnergy Zambia. “This investment enables us to deepen our on-the-ground efforts – expanding distribution networks, strengthening household support, and ensuring that electric cooking becomes a dependable part of daily life for families across the country.”

The MCFA investment will help to make UpEnergy’s electric cookers more affordable and accessible by enabling user-friendly financing mechanisms, such as PAYGO functionality and credit repayment models. The MCFA financing will allow thousands of Zambian households to adopt modern electric cooking solutions, contributing to Zambia’s clean-energy transition while improving health and time availability for low-income households.

The electric cookers provided by the company include integrated sensors that record real-time usage data, enabling UpEnergy to monitor how households adopt and continue using the devices over time. The integrated sensors track real-time consumption data for up to 13 months, capturing how households cook and enabling precise comparisons with baseline fuels. These insights underpin UpEnergy’s behavioural and human-centred approach, which combines data and community engagement to support a lasting shift from charcoal to clean, efficient electric cooking.

The Modern Cooking Facility for Africa (MCFA) supports access to and the scale-up of higher-tier clean cooking solutions. UpEnergy Zambia was shortlisted under the second funding round (MCFA2) of the Zambian country programme. The selection process included third-party evaluations of the final applications by independent experts and a detailed due diligence process carried out by Danish Energy Management in consortium with LFS Advisory.

For further information, please contact:

Heli Sinkko, MCFA Fund Manager and Senior Programme Manager, Nefco
heli.sinkko@nefco.int, +358 10 6180 659

Chris Bagnall, Marketing and Communications, UpEnergy
chris@upenergygroup.com

About UpEnergy Group

UpEnergy delivers high-impact, emissions-reducing projects that accelerate decarbonisation, fight energy poverty and benefit low-income communities most at risk from climate change. Learn more here: www.upenergygroup.com