Nepal Solar Cooker Project

Where in the world?

The Himalaya, the world’s greatest mountain range.

Why did we set it up?

As part of our ongoing drive to ensure our holidays operate in a responsible and sustainable manner we have been looking for ways in which we can reduce carbon emissions in some of our favourite destinations. One obvious way is to look at using alternative technology to help provide the energy for cooking. So after testing different designs at our offices in Kathmandu, Nepal, in autumn 2007 we purchased and installed the first two parabolic solar cookers in Lukla, the gateway to the Everest region.

Although solar cookers can never totally replace fuel burning stoves they have a wide range of benefits, the key ones being:

A reduction in the use of wood as a fuel which helps save the forests
A reduction in the time spent (mainly by women and children) collecting the wood, thus allowing them to perform other tasks or simply have more family time to relax and play. In certain areas collecting wood in forests can also be dangerous because of attacks by wild animals
A reduction in the use of expensive kerosene, which saves money for local communities
A reduction in time spent in smoke filled rooms that so easily causes serious respiratory health problems
A reduction in carbon emissions that ultimately harm the planet we live on

To maximise the economic benefit we get our solar cookers manufactured locally apart from the high quality reflectors, which have to be imported. They are then transported into the mountains and installed by our staff in the off-season when there is no other work available. The cookers are installed in the lodges our groups use on the key trekking routes. The lodge owners share the cost of the cookers with us to ensure that they 'buy in' to the ethos and benefits of using them. As visitor numbers are naturally highest at the times of year the weather is best the cookers work well when they are most needed, however because of the altitude they do still work in cloudy conditions. Through the day they are ideal for cooking, providing hot drinks and water for washing as well as filling thermos flasks for the colder evenings.

To date with fund provided directly by Exodus and donations from clients we have managed to install 30 parabolic cookers in the Everest region and 1 at Annapurna Base Camp.

What do we want to achieve?

With your help, our immediate target is to install a further 25 cookers on trekking routes and in more remote regions that do not normally benefit from the trekking industry. These will be installed on a communal basis (ie in the local school) so the maximum benefit can be had by all. We calculate the cost to manufacture, transport and install these cookers will be £250 per cooker making a total of £6,250.

If we are successful with this next phase we have plans to extend the project into other Himalayan regions, such as Ladakh in Northern India.