Stove Electrification: Barriers and Opportunities

Although we might not think about it while we’re cooking, gas stoves burn fossil fuels right in our homes. Cooking with natural gas presents high concentrations of indoor air pollutants, especially when stoves are not vented outside. In this regard, the City of Chicago is in the process of updating its construction requirements, which will include provisions that meet local code conditions as well as health and safety standards for buildings and structures.

Commercial and residential buildings in Chicago generate millions of tons of carbon emissions annually because of their reliance on natural gas. It’s clear that for Illinois to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2050, buildings must discontinue relying on fossil fuel and move toward full electrification.

Gas stoves are household fixtures in the Chicago region and deeply rooted in the community’s cultural cooking traditions. Their prevalence, and people’s familiarity and ease with them, will create a major challenge to fully electrifying residential buildings. Conversion plans must center around helping home cooks adjust and adapt to cooking on electric cooktops. Preliminary qualitative research by Elevate has found that people tend to prefer to the types of stoves they grew up using.

While stoves may seem a minor piece of equipment to focus our attention on, they are imperative to successful residential building decarbonization programs. Cooking has deep cultural roots and gas cooking is the centerpiece in this story. To get cooks to embrace electric cooking, we need to understand how cultural norms, personal preferences, public health, and utility costs encourage them to, or dissuade them from, switching to electric cooking.

Research Authors

• Quinn Biever, Elevate
• Erik Loarca, Elevate
• Jourdan Nash, Elevate