Solar Water
Heater
The principal objective
of the
Solar Thermal Energy Programme is market
development and commercialization of solar thermal systems such as solar water heaters, solar cookers, solar air heaters/dryers etc. Such a transition would ensure that energy for meeting heat requirements
for different applications in the domestic, commercial and industrial sectors of
the country will come from Green Power in years to come.
Solar
Cooker
A solar
cooker is a device, which cooks food with the help of solar energy
and can save the conventional fuels to a significant amount. It,
however, supplements the cooking fuel and cannot replace it in
total. Solar energy is abundantly available in India. On clear
sunny days, it is possible to cook noon meal for 4 to 5 people in
a normal Box solar cooker and if one desires either full or part
evening meal could also be cooked in it.
Concentrating
solar cookers
It
is a concentrating type parabolic dish solar cooker useful for homes &
small establishments. A typical dish solar cooker has an aperture
diameter of 1.4 meter and focal length 0.28 meter.
The reflecting material used for fabrication
of this cooker is anodized aluminum sheet which has a reflectivity
of
over 80%. The tracking of the cooker is manual
and thus has to be adjusted in 15 to 20 minutes during cooking time. It
has a delivering power of about 0.6 KW which can boil 2 to 3 liters of
water in half an hour. The temperature achieved at the bottom of the
vessel could be around 350 to 400o C which is sufficient for roasting,
frying and boiling. The cooker having a thermal efficiency of around 50%
can meet the needs of around 15 people and can be used from one hour after
sunrise to one hour before sunset on clear days. It can be easily
dismantled and assembled by anybody and thus
may be nicely packed and transported anywhere in the
country. The cooker is user friendly as the place of vessel to be kept for
cooking is at a level which is convenient for the people to use.
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