Design and performance evaluation of solar cookers for developing countries: The case of Mutoyi, Burundi

Summary Here, we propose an approach for supporting the design and performance evaluation phase of solar cooking technologies, to assess their eventual appropriateness for remote rural contexts, before proposing them for local field tests. The approach is based on (1) local context description and analysis, (2) design and construction of the solar cookers, and (3) thermodynamic performance evaluation. We used the approach to analyse 3 cookers for the area of Mutoyi, Burundi: a parabolic, a panel, and a box cooker. From phases 1 and 2, only panel and box cookers emerged as the technically viable solutions: They were sized, optimized, built, and tested. In phase 3, the thermodynamic evaluation indicated that the box cooker is inappropriate, since water does not reach high enough temperature. Instead, the panel cooker shows a Standardized Cooking Power of 46.85 W and a stagnation temperature higher than 75°C, which is able to bring the water to the boil when the environmental temperature is higher than 25°C. The thermal efficiency of the cooker resulted equal to 8.13%, while the mean integral temperature Tm remained around 60°C for all the lab test replicates, higher than the minimum internal temperature to cook legumes. The results of the procedure applied to the case study indicate that the panel cooker can be proposed for local field tests with local food and cooking practices, for assessing its final appropriateness on the field.

[1]  Surendra Kothari,et al.  State of the art of solar cooking: An overview , 2012 .

[2]  T. C. Kandpal,et al.  Optimal mix of technologies in rural India: The cooking sector , 1991 .

[3]  Subodh Kumar,et al.  Estimation of design parameters for thermal performance evaluation of box-type solar cooker , 2005 .

[4]  Amin U. Sarkar,et al.  Solar box cookers: Towards a decentralized sustainable energy strategy for sub-Saharan Africa , 1997 .

[5]  A. Pouris,et al.  The development impact of solar cookers : A review of solar cooking impact research in South Africa , 2007 .

[6]  Emanuela Colombo,et al.  Global Dimension of Universal Access to Energy , 2013 .

[7]  H. Öztürk.  Experimental determination of energy and exergy efficiency of the solar parabolic-cooker , 2004 .

[8]  N. M. Nahar.  Design, development and testing of a novel non-tracking solar cooker , 1998 .

[9]  P. Funk,et al.  Parametric model of solar cooker performance , 1998 .

[10]  R. Mukaro,et al.  Performance evaluation of a hot‐box reflector solar cooker using a microcontroller‐based measurement system , 2008 .

[11]  P. C. Pande,et al.  Design and development of a solar cooker cum drier , 1988 .

[12]  Daniel Pope,et al.  Indoor air pollution from unprocessed solid fuel use and pneumonia risk in children aged under five years: a systematic review and meta-analysis. , 2008, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[13]  Necdet Özbalta,et al.  Performance analysis of a solar cooker in Turkey , 2002 .

[14]  Ishan Purohit,et al.  Experimental investigation of a box type solar cooker employing a non-tracking concentrator , 2005 .

[15]  A. R. Jani,et al.  Design, development and testing of a small scale hybrid solar cooker , 2015 .

[16]  S. C. Kaushik,et al.  Energy and exergy efficiency comparison of community-size and domestic-size paraboloidal solar cooker performance , 2008 .

[17]  D. Morawetz,et al.  Employment Implications Of Industrialisation In Developing Countries: A Survey , 1974 .

[18]  F. Rembold,et al.  Assessment of charcoal driven deforestation rates in a fragile rangeland environment in North Eastern Somalia using very high resolution imagery , 2011 .

[19]  A. El-sebaii,et al.  Fast thermal cycling of acetanilide and magnesium chloride hexahydrate for indoor solar cooking , 2009 .

[20]  N. M. Nahar,et al.  An improved solar cooker , 1982 .

[21]  E. McBean,et al.  Appropriate technology – A comprehensive approach for water and sanitation in the developing world , 2009 .

[22]  S. Z. Farooqui.  Angular optimization of dual booster mirror solar cookers – Tracking free experiments with three different aspect ratios , 2015 .

[23]  Michael Tucker.  Can solar cooking save the forests , 1999 .

[24]  R. L. Sawhney,et al.  Performance test of a box-type solar cooker: effect of load on the second figure of merit , 1999 .

[25]  Varun,et al.  A thermodynamic review on solar box type cookers , 2011 .

[26]  Erdem Cuce,et al.  A comprehensive review on solar cookers , 2013 .

[27]  N. M. Nahar,et al.  Performance and testing of large‐size solar water heater cum solar cooker , 1993 .

[28]  T. C. Kandpal,et al.  Thermal test procedure for a paraboloid concentrator solar cooker , 1991 .

[29]  Hasan Öztürk,et al.  Comparison of Energy and Exergy Efficiency for Solar Box and Parabolic Cookers , 2007 .

[30]  Gordon Bauer,et al.  Evaluation of usage and fuel savings of solar ovens in Nicaragua , 2016 .

[31]  M. Herold,et al.  An assessment of deforestation and forest degradation drivers in developing countries , 2012 .

[32]  Namrata Sengar,et al.  Evaluating the optimum load range for box-type solar cookers , 2015 .

[33]  Emanuela Colombo,et al.  Sustainable energy in Africa: A comprehensive data and policies review , 2014 .

[34]  U. S. Mirdha,et al.  Design optimization of solar cooker , 2008 .

[35]  M. Ramachandran,et al.  Multi-criteria evaluation of cooking energy alternatives for promoting parabolic solar cooker in India , 2004 .

[36]  Sunil Geddam,et al.  Determination of thermal performance of a box type solar cooker , 2015 .

[37]  Paul A. Funk,et al.  Evaluating the international standard procedure for testing solar cookers and reporting performance , 2000 .

[38]  Antonio Soria-Verdugo,et al.  Experimental analysis and simulation of the performance of a box-type solar cooker , 2015 .

[39]  K. Sumathy,et al.  Performance evaluation and solar radiation capture of optimally inclined box type solar cooker with parallelepiped cooking vessel design , 2014 .

[40]  A. Buerkert,et al.  Analysis of landscape transformation processes in and around four West African cities over the last 50 years , 2012 .

[41]  Avala Raji Reddy,et al.  Prediction and experimental verification of performance of box type solar cooker – Part I. Cooking vessel with central cylindrical cavity , 2007 .

[42]  M. Grupp,et al.  SOLAR COOKER ACCEPTANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: RESULTS OF A COMPARATIVE FIELD-TEST , 1999 .

[43]  Mauro Gamberi,et al.  Innovative portable solar cooker using the packaging waste of humanitarian supplies , 2016 .

[44]  C.Z.M. Kimambo.  Development and performance testing of solar cookers , 2017 .

[45]  Salah Abdallah,et al.  A parabolic solar cooker with automatic two axes sun tracking system , 2010 .