the story So Far: India spends $26.4 billion a year on LPG imports, much of it shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. It has 332 million LPG connections, yet 37% of households still burn wood and cow dung. The math has changed: cooking with electricity is now cheaper than cooking with unsubsidized LPG. But moving millions of kitchens from flame to wire raises a series of questions like cost, grid strain and who pays when demand surges.
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What’s hindering gas-based clean cooking?
Domestic LPG connections are set to increase from 150 million in 2015 to 332 million by 2025, but India imports 60% of its LPG and 50% of natural gas. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) estimates that the combined import bill reached $26.4 billion in FY 24-25 – a 50% increase in six years.
Every West Asian increase sends a price shock straight to Indian kitchens. Gas-based clean cooking has reached its affordability limits.
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Can electricity beat gas in terms of cost, efficiency and everyday cooking?
An October 2025 IEEFA study found that cooking with electricity for a family of four in Delhi is 37% cheaper than non-subsidized LPG and 14% cheaper than piped natural gas – without any electricity subsidy. Only the pricing of the heavily subsidized Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) underpins e-cooking, and that subsidy costs the exchequer thousands of crores of rupees per year.
The efficiency gap is equally serious. Induction cooktops transfer about 85% of the energy to the pot; An LPG burner manages about 40%. Electric pressure cookers, tested in the MECS programme’s multi-country cooking diaries, use less energy than any other appliance evaluated.
Indian cooking is not a one-pot affair. Whoever makes chapattis, does Tadkaand shakes team Also know that a standard single-plate induction unit will not work. The Energy and Research Institute advocates research and development on multi-pot and flame-replicating induction models as a precursor to mass adoption sooner rather than later, explaining the 5% electric cooking share in 2021.
Both the International Institute of Sustainable Development and IEEFA recommend starting with urban kitchens, freeing up imported LPG for rural areas, where there is still a lack of reliable electricity. The logic is sound – but it leads to a difficult question. If 10 million urban kitchens switch on induction cooktops in the evening, what happens to the power grid?
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What is ‘peak’ and what does the utility do when demand exceeds supply?
The demand for electricity varies greatly throughout the day. This increases around 3 pm and then by 9-11 pm, as lights, fans, TVs and ACs switch on at the same time in most homes. This surge is called a ‘peak’.
India’s peak demand rises from 148 GW in 2014 to a record 250 GW in May 2024; The Energy Ministry has estimated that it could reach 270 GW in 2025. According to the IEA, for each degree increase in average daily temperature, peak demand now increases by more than 7 GW.
When demand exceeds the contracted supply of a distribution company (discom), it has few options – none of them cheap. It can buy power on the spot market, particularly the Indian Energy Exchange, where prices can range from ₹3.50 per unit during normal hours to ₹9-10 during peak slots. It could burn expensive gas-fired peaking plants or release stored hydropower. It can dispatch grid-scale batteries – BSES Rajdhani in Delhi has launched India’s first commercial battery storage for this type of energy intermediation. Or, as a last resort, it could impose planned power cuts, alternating blackouts across an entire region – known as load shedding – which disrupts livelihoods, harm industrial production, and are increasingly punished by regulators.
Now imagine adding millions of induction cooktops during that evening peak window. Without intelligent management, large-scale e-cooking will increase evening rush hour, increase spot-market costs and increase the risk of outages. The question is not whether to electrify or not, but how to electrify without putting pressure on the grid. This is where automated demand response enters the picture.
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Can smart technology level the peak automatically?
OpenADR – Open Automated Demand Response – is a two-way communication standard that enables automated participation of smart thermostats, EV chargers, water heaters, cooktops, ancillary services (frequency/voltage), and DER coordination in demand response. These devices then adjust their consumption automatically, without anyone needing to lift a finger. Originating from California’s 2002 energy crisis, its latest version plugs into modern energy systems using standard web protocols.
India has started its deployment. Tata Power Delhi Distribution conducted the country’s first OpenADR pilot among 167 commercial and industrial consumers, achieving an average peak reduction of 14%. A study conducted on the pilot states that if the technology is implemented in all buildings in India, the maximum shaving potential is close to 7%. Internationally, South Korea’s Auto DR pilot cut electricity use by 24%; Such programs typically pay for themselves within four years by deferring the cost of new grid infrastructure.
Discoms still lack the full stack: OpenADR-compliant servers, smart-meter-embedded receivers, and aggregator platforms that can organize distributed loads into virtual power plants. Building this stack is essential – but it’s only half the solution. The remaining half is through investments in transformer and feeder infrastructure to upgrade the load capacity of households from 3 kW to 5 kW, as well as transforming households from passive consumers to active grid participants.
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Can rooftop solar and neighborhood businesses take pressure off the grid?
A rooftop solar panel paired with a battery turns a home into a ‘prosumer’ – both a producer and a consumer. The panel generates electricity during the day; The battery stores the surplus; And the stored energy is discharged in the evening to run the induction cooktop. This precisely compensates for the peak that large-scale e-cooking would otherwise produce.
A 2025 Australian national-grid study noted a halving of peak lead and a 75% reduction in grid reinforcement costs when residential electrification was combined with rooftop solar, batteries and off-peak scheduling.
India’s rooftop solar power capacity is projected to double from 17.6 GW in 2025 to more than 41 GW by 2030, boosted by the PM-Surya Ghar scheme, which aims to provide 300 units of free electricity to ten million households.
The real impact occurs when surplus solar energy is not only stored but also traded. Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading lets a household sell excess electricity directly to a neighbor using digital platforms, bypassing the traditional discom route.
India ran South Asia’s first blockchain-based P2P solar trading pilot in Lucknow, led by India Smart Grid Forum and Australia’s PowerLedger, under a regulatory sandbox approved by the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission. Consumers set prices, track trades in real time, and settle transactions through smart contracts. Result: 43% reduction in energy purchase price compared to retail tariff.
The success of the pilot prompted Uttar Pradesh to direct all its utilities to make provisions for P2P trading – a first for any state. In February 2026, the Center announced a P2P facility under the India Energy Stack for Delhi and Western UP.
If a group of households on the same feeder can trade solar surplus during evening cooking hours, the local peak is flattened, the discom avoids buying expensive exchange power, and the neighborhood effectively becomes a micro virtual power plant.
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What needs to happen, and how quickly?
New York’s All-Electric Building Act mandates that most new construction below seven stories be fully electric by January 2026 and taller buildings by 2029. India has started the groundwork: the Go Electric campaign and the National Efficient Cooking Program have set a target of two million induction stoves; BEE launches star labeling for induction hobs; PM-Surya Ghar Yojana directly links rooftop solar to household savings.
But a comprehensive architecture is needed: Redirect part of the estimated ₹40,000 crore annual LPG subsidy towards one-time capital support for induction cooktops. Extend EESL’s bulk-buying model to e-cooking appliances. Mandate time-of-use tariffs for e-cooking and require OpenADR compatibility in new appliances and smart meters. Fund R&D on multi-pot induction technology designed for Indian cooking. And making all-electric construction mandatory for new residential buildings in tier-1 cities.
The urgency is as much geopolitical as it is economic. Every dollar we spend on LPG imports passes through a supply chain that is completely exposed to the Hormuz choke point and whatever the oil producers decide to do that week.
Electricity is different – ​​you can generate it from solar panels on rooftops and store it in batteries that we assemble here. We are talking about moving from imported fuel to self-generated electricity. It’s not just energy policy, it’s sovereignty.
Urban India is the obvious place to begin this transformation. The grid is working, smart meters are already in place, and rooftop solar in cities pays for itself. The technology is there. The numbers keep adding up. We know how to manage the grid. The question is whether the policy framework will address this issue before the next oil shock.
