Powerstove: Free off-grid electricity as you cook!

Q: Can you briefly present your company, please?

Peachwater is an energy-conversion social enterprise located in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. We produce Powerstove, the first connected cookstove with a self-powered, cloud-based monitoring system. It saves lives, generates electricity, improves livelihoods, empowers women, and preserves the environment.

Q: Tell us more!

Powerstove has been designed for robust, uninterrupted performance in sub-saharan conditions. It uses up to 70% less fuel and burns a wide variety of biomass, including charcoal, sticks and twigs, cowdung, and corn-cobs. But it will also burn processed biomass fuels like wood pellets or briquettes produced from sawdust, or forestry or agricultural waste.

With its built-in battery and four-speed fan, it reduces cooking time, uses much less fuel, and lowers carbon emissions. The fan blows oxygen into the combustion chamber and within 1-2 minutes, the temperature approaches 1000°C. This gasifies the biomass, which is thus almost entirely consumed. The production of toxic pollutants is cut by 95%, and the savings in fuel mean Powerstove pays for itself in less than three months, allowing us to offer Pay-As-You-Cook financing.

While the kettle boils, the Powerstove produces electricity. A thermo-electric generator provides 8-20W of power, which will recharge a laptop or cellphone, or run a string of LEDS. A small DC-AC converter will ramp up the 12v to 230, enough to power a television set or fan.

And that is not all! Powerstove is also fitted with a cloud-based monitoring system, which continuously uploads data on cooking events, and displays it in real time on the Powerstove dashboard. Visualization options include the cooking events of the day, the amount of CO2, biomass and Black Carbon saved, or electricity generated in kW. Rural women can even receive cash payments for their measured use of improved cookstoves with reduced carbon footprint. And should it be lost or stolen, the Powerstove is easily found: the monitoring system tells you where it is!

Q: Why are you participating in Vivatech with ENGIE?

We hope that an international platform like Vivatech will showcase our technology, and attract investors.

Q: And what will you be presenting?

The Powerstove clean cookstove, quite simply!

Q: For you, the future means... ?

Cooking that is faster and fun... and helps to save the planet!