Fast-response storage-type solar cooker

Abstract

All the solar powered cookers presently available in the world market are of the so-called “Reflector Box” type. Despite the fact that they have been presented, for a good few years, to the market and are very simple and low cost they have not managed to establish any meaningful and noticeable presence in a viable commercial sense. This fact is even more in evidence in those markets they are primarily designed for. The reasons to the lack of commercial success for the reflector box type cookers are analysed in some details. The assessment of general features and performance of the reflector box type cooker led to the design of the Fast Response Storage Type Cooker presented in this paper. The new cooker is the result of combination of non-tracking compound parabolic reflector, fast response heat pipes, high-quality and low-cost thermal insulator, low-loss thermal storage battery, glass to metal seals, vacuum technology and bimetal automatic switches. It is capable of storing the solar energy during the day to facilitate cooking during the evenings and nights. A prototype is made and the performance of the elements of the system are presented. It shows how the “waste-energy” of the cooker can be used for other applications.