Reseachers use machine learning AI to forecast clean energy accessibility in Africa

A full body shot of a human standing next to 5 large cast iron cooking pots and two smaller cast iron kettles with their back to the camera.

Image courtesy of Getty Images.

A new Loughborough University study on clean energy accessibility in Africa forecasts that 1.1 billion people will be without eco-friendly cooking fuels or technologies by 2050.

Researchers in the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology have used machine learning – a branch of artificial intelligence – to create a computer model that predicts future clean cooking landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Currently, around 940 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa lack access to clean cooking fuels and technologies – which are deemed ‘clean’ due to the levels of particulate matter and carbon monoxide they emit – and are consequently constrained to cooking with polluting biomass fuels, such as charcoal and wood.