3rd International Conference on Electronics, Biomedical Engineering and its Applications (ICEBEA'2013) April 29-30, 2013 Singapore

Solar Based Induction Cook Top

Anuge Sarine Francis#, Bhavana Ffion, Faseen.K., and Hema Mohan

Abstract--- One of the most threatening problems that we are to

witness in future is the scarcity of cooking gas. An alternate method
is to reckon upon electricity for the purpose. But the extensive
upsurge in the price of electricity and the lack of availability of large
amount of electricity forces us to think about yet another alternative.
So we come up with a project which is all about replacing
conventional sources of energy which are gradually being extinct
with renewable energy sources munificent in nature. This paper
explains how we can adapt this to our cooking system, i.e., using
solar energy to cook faster, easier and cheaper compared to other
cooking systems.
Keywords - Induction cook top, solar, renewable energy, solar
based system, induction, sustainable energy.
I. INTRODUCTION
D URING this fast life era we all depend on the latest and
cheapest technology that would make our life more
befitting, comfortable and dynamic. So we choose a
project which could improvise the extant technology with
some ancillary addendums. That is implementing an induction
cook top that could completely reckon on solar energy.
Solar energy has always been vital for mankind. With
augment in anxiety in conventional energy sources, renewable
sources such as solar energy are gaining enormous
significance. One ilk of solar energy is the photovoltaic (PV)
technology that transmutes solar energy to electric energy by
the virtue of solar cells. The photovoltaic energy is either
implemented as a stand-alone energy source or allied to the
grid as distributed energy generation. Thus we can say that in
near future almost all of our energy consumption will be based
on sunlight that is nothing but solar energy .
II. BASIC BLOCK DIAGRAM
The whole system is completely lucid and easy to install.
The basic block diagram of a solar based induction cook top
shown in thsi figure. Here are the different block such as solar
panel , battery , inverter and control circuit and induction
cooktop in the diagram explained in details. Let us see each
block in detail.
Anuge Sarine Francis#, Bhavana Ffion, Faseen.K., and Hema Mohan are
with Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering Federal
Institute of Science and Technology. Angamaly , Kerala ,India.
#
Corresponding author: Anuge Sarine Francis anugefrancis. email:
francis@gmail.com
Fig 1.Block Diagram
A. Solar Panel
Solar panel is a compiled and connected assembly
of photovoltaic cells that transmutes solar energy into
electrical energy [1]. It can be used as a constituent of a bigger
photovoltaic system to create and distribute electricity in
mercantile and residential applications. Each panel is rated in
accordance with its DC output power under standard
conditions, and typical specification ranges from 100 to 320
watts. We espouse a collection of 200 watt panels to form
1000 watts.
The conjectured efficiency of these panels are 80% and thus
we could postulate that a figure of 800 watts may be collected
from this section.
A photovoltaic system conventionally comprehends an
array of solar panels, an inverter, and an optional battery.
B. Battery
A storage battery is an ilk of electrical battery. It is a genre
of energy accumulators comprising of more than one
electrochemical cells[2]. It is known as a secondary cell since
its electrochemical reactions are electrically rescindable.
Rechargeable batteries are used by grid energy
storage applications for load-levelling, where they accumulate
electric energy. For sustainable energy uses, the energy stored
during day time can be used during peak load hours at night.
Load-levelling mitigates the eradication of the desideratum for
expensive culminating power plants and aids in amortizing the
cost.
We use a couple of batteries, each of 12V and 150Ah
capacity forming 24V and 300Ah capacity. This generates 4
hours of output approximately at night without charging.
C. Inverter
A power inverter is a converter which transmutes direct
current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The converted output
can be made to any voltage and frequency according to the
applications and desiderata.

185
 3rd International Conference on Electronics, Biomedical Engineering and its Applications (ICEBEA'2013) April 29-30, 2013 Singapore
We use a 1.5kVA inverter with standard output
specifications of 230V, 50Hz to suit our requirements.
D. Control Circuit
In the system there must be a scheme to detect when a cell
reaches full charge (change in terminal voltage, temperature,
etc.) and to stop charging before harmful overcharging or
overheating occurs[3]. We can incorporate cooling fans if
needed to keep the cells from heating. Here we use a control
circuit with voltage level sensors to obviate a detonation.
The photograph of the control circuit is shown in figure 2.
Fig 2. Control Circuit
1) Microcontroller and Buzzer: Microcontrollers are
designed for small devoted applications. PIC is
initially gleaned from PIC1640 developed by General
Instruments Microelectronic Division. It became a
family of Harvard Achitecture by Microchip
technologies. The name PIC is the abbreviation for
Programmable Interface Controller. We use a 40
pin PIC, 18F4550 to control all the processes such as
charging, monitoring etc. A buzzer is a mechanical,
electromechanical or piezoelectric signaling device
which alerts through an audio signal. Here we use the
same to beep when the battery charge comes under a
threshold.
2) Voltage sensing and Current sensing Unit: We are
using voltage divider setup to measure the battery
voltage and a shunt resistor and operational amplifier
setup for measuring the current driven from solar
energy.
3) Graphical Lcd and Switching circuit: The Graphical
LCDs are capable of displaying customized images
and characters[4]. The Graphical LCDs can be used
in a number of applications such as in mobile phones,
video games etc. The GLCD in our circuit has a
display format of 128x64 dots and has yellow-green
colour backlight. It is divided equally into two halves
controlled each controllers and consists of 8 pages.
Each page comprises of 8 rows and 64 columns. The
switching circuit is employed using metal oxide
semiconductor field effect transistors(MOSFETs) to
186
avoid overheating and detonation of batteries due to
any upsurge in current flow.
E. Induction cook top
Induction cooking makes use of induction heating to heat
a metal cooking vessel directly, rather than transferring
heat from a flame as with an accustomed cooking stove. For
almost all models of induction cook top, the cooking pot must
be manufactured using a ferromagnetic metal, or an interface
disk should be used to enable non-induction cookware to be
used instead of ferromagnetic cookwares.
In an induction cooktop, a copper coil is placed underneath
the cooking pot. An alternating electric current flows through
the coil, which produces an oscillating magnetic field[5]. This
field induces an electric current in the pot. Current flowing in
the metal pot produces resistive heating which heats the food.
While the current is large, it is produced by a low voltage. An
induction cooker is faster and more energy-efficient than the
traditional methods of cooking.
III. STUDY
The contemporary energy sources for cooking are
LPG(Liquid Petroleum Gas) and electricity. Cooking gas is on
a verge of paucity in the country and reckoning on it for
cooking in future will be quixotic. A number of electric
cooking stoves and induction cook tops are already in use for
small and quick cooking[6]. But espousing it as a source for
unabridged cooking chores in a house will pave the way for
very high consumption of electrical energy and thereby
elevate monthly energy charges or electricity bill[7]. So as a
wise alternative, we can adopt solar energy to generate
adequate electricity for an induction cook top to work so as to
carry out a whole days cooking. So in future it will save a lot
of energy. The table which shows the energy consumption and
the price hike in the near past is shown.
TABLE I
PRICE HIKE IN COOKING GAS AND ELECTRICITY
Table I shows the price upsurge in cooking gas and
electricity from the year 2002 to 2012. During these 10 years,
the price of these commodities has increased beyond a linear
rate making it streneous for common people to reckon upon
these sources. The price hike has been elevated during the past
4 years and signs show us that it will increase in a bigger rate
in near future.
 3rd International Conference on Electronics, Biomedical Engineering and its Applications (ICEBEA'2013) April 29-30, 2013 Singapore
In this paper, we implement a solar based system and find
out the feasibility of the idea and the monetary profits of using
it rather than using electric supply for cooking, as cooking gas
is almost unavailable.
From calculations it is estimated that by using solar based
induction cook top for complete cooking in a house, one can
reap back the whole installation expenses in nearly 5 years and
every year after that, he save an amount of Rs. 12000.
Fig. 1 Bar graph showing the expense per month for cooking using
gas, electricity and Solar based induction cooktop
The bar graph shown above explains the desideratum for
such a paper in current scenario. The expense of
cooking+electricity using cooking gas is nearly Rs. 1250 per
month and that using only electricity is nearly Rs. 1550 per
month[8]. By espousing our Solar Based Induction Cook Top,
we need to spend only the initial installation cost of around
Rs.60000. After that for years we need not spend a penny for
187
cooking purpose. This is what we think makes this project
important and acceptable.
IV. CONCLUSION
The topic selected in the renewable energy resources area is
relevant and productive to match the current scenario of
REFERENCES
[1] A.Zahedi, "Energy, People, Environment, Development of an
integrated renewable energy and energy storage system, an
uninterruptible power supply for people and for better environment,"
The International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1994.
'Humans, Information and Technology', Vol. 3 pp. 2692-2695, 1994.
[2] Ahmad Yafaoui, Bin Wu and Richard Cheung, Photovoltaic energy
Systems-An Overview, IEEE Canadian Review-Spring/Printemps 2009.
[3] Cousins PJ,Smith DD, Luan HC, Manning J, Dennis TD, Waldhauer A,
Wilson KE, Harley G and Mulligan GP, Gen III:Improved performance
at lower cost, 35th IEEE PVSC, Honolulu, HI, June 2010.
[4] James P.Dunlop, Batteries and Charge Control in Stand-
alonePhotovoltaic Systems:Fundamentals and Applications, 15th Jan
1997.
[5] E. Karatepe, T. Boztepe, and M. Colak, "Power Controller Design for
Photovoltaic Generation System under Partially Shaded Insolation
Conditions", The International Conference on Intelligent Systems
Applications to Power Systems, pp. 1-6, 2007.
[6] B. Hall "Paralleling MOSFETs Successfully", Electronic Products
Magazine, 1985
[7] A.M. Sharaf and A.R.N.M. Reaz Ul Haque, "A stand alone photovoltaic
(ac) scheme for village electricity," 31st Photovoltaic Specialists
Conference and Exhibition, January 3-7, 2005, Florida (Accepted)
[8] A.I. Martinez and H. Calleja, "A simple, high-quality output PV system
aimed at peak demand reduction," in Conference Publication of the VII
IEEE international Power Electronics Congress, CIEP 2000, 15-19 Oct.
2000, pp.301-306.