INDOOR SOLAR COOKING

Abstract:
About 36% of energy consumption in India is utilised only for cooking purposes (Ref-
(4)). Since our country is blessed with abundant sunshine, the utilisation of solar thermal
energy for the cooking purpose is possible and it reduces the energy consumption level too
positively. Even though the Box type solar cookers are readily available in market, those
cookers not able to extent up to Indoor level.

For Indoor cooking by solar energy source must require to transport the thermal
energy to the kitchen is necessary one. This abstract dealt one of the improvements in the
Indoor cooking technology with solar heat.

Types of cooking Methods by solar energy:

1) Box Type of Solar cooker (Outdoor use of Solar Energy):

An insulated hot box (square, rectangular, cylindrical) painted black from inside and
insulated from all sides except window side which is double glazed is used. Single or
multiple plane reflectors are used. This type of cookers is also called as oven type solar
cookers. These can be electrical cum solar cookers and some cookers utilize a kind of latent
heat storage material (Ref-(5))
2) Direct focussing of solar light on the Cooker:
In these cookers single or multifacet solar energy concentrator (parabolic, spherical,
cylindrical, Fresnel) is used. These concentrators focus the solar radiation on a focal
point or area where a cooking pot or frying pan is placed. In this type, the heat loss due
to convection is large from the cooking vessel and only the direct solar radiation used in
the cooker to cook the food.

In some cases the reflector is used to focus the sun light on to the single point or
cooker, which is placed inside of the house through the opening specially provided for
entry of focussed sun light. The working of Scheffler Community Solar Cooker followed
this principle and it is shown in the figure. In this method we can achieve the
temperature range of 150oC to 450oC.Manual or automatic tracking is required in this
method to change the position of the reflector according to the sun direction. Fresnel
lens used in this system to focus the sun light on to cooker.
3) Indirect use of solar thermal energy:
This type is mainly used in the Indoor cooking method by solar thermal energy. In this
method the liquid medium is used to transport the solar heat energy in the kitchen for
the cooking of foods. (Ref-(5))
 In this project it is recommended that the use of solar coil (Ref-(1)) for heat the
media to get the solar heat energy. At present the solar coil is used for preheat the water
and it is placed directly kept over the roof as shown in the figure.

Here, solar coil is recommended to keep in the targeted place of the Fresnel
concentrator or heliostat. Molten salt is used as the heat transfer medium which flow inside
of the solar coil.
 Since the heat energy extracted from the method is very high, this method is
normally used in the steam power plant to generate the steam.(Ref-(6))

Molten-Salt Solar Cooker With Solar Coil: (Ref-(7))

To improve the ease of cooking one, it can implement the design by having an
outdoor arrangement for heat absorption and storage that includes the Phase Change
Material, a heat fluid which is regulated by a condenser and steam tank, and finally an
indoor cooker installed inside the kitchen. The following figure explains that principle. If the
solar coil is placed in the focus place it can gather more heat and the liquid takes the heat
very well and transport it to the cooking medium.
Ref:

(1) https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/multimedia/pdfs/csctcooking.pdf

(2) http://elearning.servsafe.com/content/ssmct6/assets/en/pdf/cooking_requirements.pdf

(3) https://shop.solardirect.com/product_info.php?products_id=1853

(4) http://iisc.researchmedia.center/article/solar-energy-transport-kitchen-cooking-purposes

(5) http://web.iitd.ac.in/~vkvijay/SOLAR%20COOKING%20TECHNOLOGY.pdf

(6) http://cdigital.com.pk/services/solar-systems/solar-thermal-for-street-generation/

(7) https://www.engineeringforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SwastikTripathy.pdf