The “twin transition”, the coupled pursuit of decarbonisation and digitalisation, has become a dominant policy and investment frame, yet its household-level consequences remain underspecified, particularly in clean-cooking programmes increasingly governed through digital payment rails, platform service systems, and data-driven targeting. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kigali, this study indicates that digitalisation is not a neutral enabler of clean cooking; it reshapes the practical conditions under which clean energy options become usable, trustworthy, and socially legitimate. Households considering LPG, electricity, and efficient appliances weigh not only price and thermal performance but also digitally produced frictions and risks, including the ability to transact via mobile money at mealtime, the cadence of PAYG repayments, the evidentiary demands and responsiveness of platform-mediated customer care, and the clarity of datafied eligibility rules. These conditions are unevenly distributed within households and often operate as gendered constraints on autonomy, while prepaid visibility can heighten the reputational costs of service interruption when systems fail mid-cook. The paper advances a practice-based account of the twin transition by showing how digital infrastructures shape clean-cooking trajectories through access preconditions, platform-mediated accountability, prepaid visibility that moralises interruption, and inclusion–surveillance trade-offs. The findings suggest that equitable program design requires reducing procedural burden, treating customer care as core infrastructure, minimising mid-cook failure, and evaluating transitions based on cooking sequences and reliability rather than device ownership or connection metrics.
| Published in | Social Sciences (Volume 15, Issue 1) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14 |
| Page(s) | 30-44 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Twin Transition, Clean Cooking, E-cooking, Pay-As-You-Go, Mobile Money, Prepaid Metering, Practice Theory, Energy Justice
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APA Style
Thoronka, J. (2026). Cooking in the Twin Transition: Digitally Mediated Clean Energy Access in Kigali, Rwanda. Social Sciences, 15(1), 30-44. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14
ACS Style
Thoronka, J. Cooking in the Twin Transition: Digitally Mediated Clean Energy Access in Kigali, Rwanda. Soc. Sci. 2026, 15(1), 30-44. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14
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Download@article{10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14,
author = {Jeremiah Thoronka},
title = {Cooking in the Twin Transition: Digitally Mediated Clean Energy Access in Kigali, Rwanda},
journal = {Social Sciences},
volume = {15},
number = {1},
pages = {30-44},
doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20261501.14},
abstract = {The “twin transition”, the coupled pursuit of decarbonisation and digitalisation, has become a dominant policy and investment frame, yet its household-level consequences remain underspecified, particularly in clean-cooking programmes increasingly governed through digital payment rails, platform service systems, and data-driven targeting. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kigali, this study indicates that digitalisation is not a neutral enabler of clean cooking; it reshapes the practical conditions under which clean energy options become usable, trustworthy, and socially legitimate. Households considering LPG, electricity, and efficient appliances weigh not only price and thermal performance but also digitally produced frictions and risks, including the ability to transact via mobile money at mealtime, the cadence of PAYG repayments, the evidentiary demands and responsiveness of platform-mediated customer care, and the clarity of datafied eligibility rules. These conditions are unevenly distributed within households and often operate as gendered constraints on autonomy, while prepaid visibility can heighten the reputational costs of service interruption when systems fail mid-cook. The paper advances a practice-based account of the twin transition by showing how digital infrastructures shape clean-cooking trajectories through access preconditions, platform-mediated accountability, prepaid visibility that moralises interruption, and inclusion–surveillance trade-offs. The findings suggest that equitable program design requires reducing procedural burden, treating customer care as core infrastructure, minimising mid-cook failure, and evaluating transitions based on cooking sequences and reliability rather than device ownership or connection metrics.},
year = {2026}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Cooking in the Twin Transition: Digitally Mediated Clean Energy Access in Kigali, Rwanda AU - Jeremiah Thoronka Y1 - 2026/01/30 PY - 2026 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14 DO - 10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14 T2 - Social Sciences JF - Social Sciences JO - Social Sciences SP - 30 EP - 44 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2326-988X UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20261501.14 AB - The “twin transition”, the coupled pursuit of decarbonisation and digitalisation, has become a dominant policy and investment frame, yet its household-level consequences remain underspecified, particularly in clean-cooking programmes increasingly governed through digital payment rails, platform service systems, and data-driven targeting. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kigali, this study indicates that digitalisation is not a neutral enabler of clean cooking; it reshapes the practical conditions under which clean energy options become usable, trustworthy, and socially legitimate. Households considering LPG, electricity, and efficient appliances weigh not only price and thermal performance but also digitally produced frictions and risks, including the ability to transact via mobile money at mealtime, the cadence of PAYG repayments, the evidentiary demands and responsiveness of platform-mediated customer care, and the clarity of datafied eligibility rules. These conditions are unevenly distributed within households and often operate as gendered constraints on autonomy, while prepaid visibility can heighten the reputational costs of service interruption when systems fail mid-cook. The paper advances a practice-based account of the twin transition by showing how digital infrastructures shape clean-cooking trajectories through access preconditions, platform-mediated accountability, prepaid visibility that moralises interruption, and inclusion–surveillance trade-offs. The findings suggest that equitable program design requires reducing procedural burden, treating customer care as core infrastructure, minimising mid-cook failure, and evaluating transitions based on cooking sequences and reliability rather than device ownership or connection metrics. VL - 15 IS - 1 ER -
School of Global Studies, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand
