Make Food When The Sun Shines: A Look at the Solar Cooker Scene in India

chillibreeze writer — Vilasini Kumar

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Index

Solar Energy- A Cheap Alternate to Fossil Fuel?

Solar Cooked Food- Tasty and Good for Health

Types of Solar Cookers

Did You Know?

The Indian Scene

Why aren't Solar Cookers so Hot ?

Some Feedback from Users

Ideal for Community Kitchens

How to buy solar products in India

The Present

You think of India and you think sunshine, heat and of course …people! With bright sun beating down on most days in India, the first thing someone who steps into a room after an extended outing in the sun is highly likely to say -  “Phew, it is boiling hot out there!” If such is the sun’s calorific capacity, could the solar energy not be tapped and used to boil and cook, among other things?

The trigger to this article was the personal experience of Ralph Budelman, the promoter of Chillibreeze, who is in the process of discovering the capabilities of a solar cooker that he has recently acquired! Having bought a parabolic solar cooker from a persuasive salesman, he now swears by it! “We use it everyday to cook rice and dal (a kind of lentil preparation)” he said, when we met in his office and went on to wonder, aloud, whether the solar cooker was at all popular in India. He strongly felt that it would be a cheap cooking medium for those who have to otherwise depend on firewood. His experience of having seen women cooking in smoky firewood fed ovens in Bangalore was the basis for this conclusion. With migrant population constantly coming in to eke out a living in bigger cities, the chances of seeing posh multi-storied complexes alongside makeshift housing is high. The latter community is dependent on chopped firewood for fuel.  As for the rural populace, firewood is in any case the most sought after fuel. Do check out www.greendesigns.org for some innovative designs to help make life better for the marginalised community.

Solar energy – can it be a cheap alternative to fossil fuel?

What further got us interested in writing this report was the fact that there has been a steady rise in the prices of conventional fuels, like cooking gas, in India and at the same time there is an increased awareness about the need to protect our environment. One is given to understand that presently only 8 per cent of the energy used on earth comes from renewable resources. The rest 92 per cent is from fossil and nuclear fuel sources. It’s no secret that fossil fuels damage the environment, or that we are dangerously close to exhausting them completely. The solar energy options are, therefore, becoming more attractive. Isn't it time more of us started thinking of alternate options? Solar energy is being tapped for a variety of uses – from generating electricity to cooking. Here we take a closer look at solar cookers in general and see how they are faring in India in particular. 

Once I stepped in to explore the world of solar cookers it did not take me long to realise that it is a subject that holds the fascination of many,  and rightly so!  Just consider this: what would you say if you had an option for using a cooking device which:

• when handled with care, will last 15 years or more;
• has no moving part in it to go wrong;
• needs very little maintenance;
• entails no running cost;
• Highly versatile and easily transportable; and
• is environment friendly.

Would you not do everything to find out about this and get hold of one? These are exactly what solar cookers offer us. Yet very few of us seem to be using them! On top of this -

• The solar cooker can be used both in the rural and urban areas;
• In the rural sector it saves village women from having to trudge for miles in search of scraps of firewood and spending their lifetime in smoke-filled kitchens;
• In the urban sector it saves energy on kerosene and LPG and makes cooking easy.

Both at the individual level and at the national level numerous people, organisations and Governments are involved in designing new solar cooking devices and popularizing them.  The solar cooker is being used in over 25 countries the world over. Yet it is not ‘common’ to see people using it! Could it be just a sense of lethargy, which is keeping us away from exploring and adopting this medium?

Finding ways of channelising solar energy is not a newfound fascination. There are records to show that a Swiss naturalist designed a box type cooker in the year 1767! In fact, Indian scriptures talk about the efficacy of solar cooking:

Vedic Scriptures highlight the health benefits of Sun cooked food! Sun cooked food improves cellular health and longevity of life. It strengthens health and mind removes three major physical disorders to do with digestion, blood and respiratory system, balances inner body temperatures, life, glows aura and keeps various obstacles away. Sun cooked food has great medicinal value. It enhances intellect, genius. Thousands of years ago, Shradul muni observed, "Food cooked by sun is great." ‘Rig Veda' Food cooked by solar heat is lovely in appearance, aroma, flavor, and taste. It is ultimate medicine (Amrita) for manly vigor and glorious skin complexion without doubt.'Yagyavalk Smriti' Source: http://www.rohitassolarcooker.com/About%20Us.htm

Sun cooked food does taste better

An observation by Charlie and Fran Collins, users of the solar cooker, seems to confirm that the taste does improve when one uses solar energy! This is what they had posted on he web: “We have found that cooking with a solar cooker greatly improves the taste of the food. As an experiment we have cooked potatoes four different ways, in our oven, in our pressure cooker, in water and in our solar cooker. The potatoes were all from the same batch and we all definitely realized a much more earthly taste with the solar cooked potatoes than those cooked any other way. We have also found that meat as well as other foods does definitely taste better in our solar cooker, why I really do not know.” (source: http://www.ecovantageenergy.com/FAQ/faq20.html)

Before we delve deeper, let us look at the basic types of solar cookers

Box Cookers	Panel Cookers	Parabolic Cookers
When a glass covered chamber coated black inside and insulated all around is exposed to sunlight the temperature inside exceeds 100 degree Celsius, which is sufficient to cook food. More heat can be achieved by having an exterior reflector. The solar box cooker incorporates these features.	Roger Bernard in France came up with this design, where various flat panels concentrate the sun's rays on to a pot inside a plastic bag or under a glass bowl. The advantage of this design is that they can be built in an hour or so, from next to nothing. In Kenya, these are being manufactured for the Kakuma Refugee Camp project for US$2 each.	These are usually concave disks that focus the light onto the bottom of a pot. The advantage is that foods cook about as fast as on a conventional stove. Seen above is one model and there are many others possible.
Slow, even cooking of large quantities of food is possible Takes more than 3 hours to cook	Relatively quicker, but can cook only smaller quantities	Food can be cooked in half an hour. The disadvantage is that they are complicated to make, they must be focused often to follow the sun, and they can cause burns and eye injury if not used correctly.
With a single-reflector box cooker, once the food is cooked, it just stays warm and doesn't scorch.You can put in a few pots with different foods and then come back later in the day and each pot will cook to perfection and stay hot until you take it out.	Some people have reported the need to stir food every once in a while when using this kind of cooker, to ensure that the food heats evenly.	Cooking with a parabolic cooker is very similar to cooking on one burner of a conventional stove. Since the concentrated sunlight shines directly on the bottom of a pot, the pot heats up and cooks very quickly. The food will burn though. So you have to stir it and watch it carefully.
Box cookers with one back reflector don't need to be turned unless you are cooking beans, which take up to 5 hours.	Panel cookers need to be turned more often than box cookers, since they have side reflectors that can shade the pot.	Parabolic cookers are the most difficult to keep in focus. These need to be turned every 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the focal length.

Did you know?

• The first box type solar cooker was built by Horace de Saussure, a Swiss naturalist, in 1767! He is said to have cooked fruits in it.
• That box type solar cookers can be fabricated using just cardboard and aluminum foil?  Check out this website for the design http://www.i4at.org/surv/solarbox.htm
• In the 1950’s UN and other funding agencies commissioned studies to design solar cookers. The conclusion was encouraging – that solar cooker can cook food thoroughly and nutritiously and was easy to make and use.
• Based on the above study, UN sponsored programmes to introduce them in communities where there was a felt need, but this did not meet with much success.
• A World Conference on Solar Cooking was held in Stockton, California, in 1992. (http://solarcooking.org/stockton.htm)

THE INDIAN SCENE: Some of the policy initiatives taken by the Indian Government to promote the use of solar energy in general are:

• 1981 - Recognising the importance of renewable energy sources as the best alternative to conventional fuels, the Government of India set up a Commission for Additional Sources of Energy (CASE) in the Department of Science and Technology
• 1982 -  A full-fledged, independent department, the Department of Non-conventional Energy Sources, is set up.
• 1992 - This ‘department’ is made into a ‘Ministry’, called the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES).
• Gave subsidy for box type solar cookers from 1984 to 1994.

MNES is the nodal agency of the Government of India for all matters relating to non-conventional/renewable energy. For more information click on www.mnes.nic.in

Thanks to the subsidy programme, it is estimated that over 5, 41,000 box type solar cookers, were sold/ installed in India, up to the end of March 1993.

As the MNES felt that the use of solar energy for cooking and water heating was on the increase, the subsidy on solar water heaters and solar cookers were withdrawn in 1993-94. It is interesting to note that the Government continues to subsidize cooking gas, at a heavy cost to the exchequer, but is doing little about solar cookers.  With over 40manufacturers of different types ofsolar cookers in the India, the combined capacity is to the tune of 75, 000 cookers pre annum. The manufacturers are mostly in the north - Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The cookers have to adhere to the norms recommended by the MNES and the end product needs to be approved by the Bureau of Indian Standards. We understand that an estimated ‘potential’ demand for solar cookers in India is nearly 10 million!

MNES has also opened Aditya Solar Shops across the country, which serves as convenient consumer points for sales, service and repair of renewable energy devices. I visited their shop in Bangalore. The most popular item, going by the numbers on display, were solar water heating units, which can be used instead of the conventional geysers. Also available was a model of a box type solar cooker priced at Rs. 2,500.  Parabolic cookers too were available, the bigger one costing around Rs. 5,500.and a smaller, more compact version, costs about half the price. I was given to understand that there is not much demand for solar cookers.

If solar ovens are so good, why isn't everyone using one?  — Possible reasons could be:

• lack of awareness about the fact that one can use solar energy to cook;
• potential users might not want to cook in the open, and may not really be convinced that solar cooking is a viable proposition;
• easy availability of cooking gas and kerosene in the urban cities could be stopping people from trying this option;
• people may be sold on the idea, but do not have adequate open area with sunlight in their homes;
• Although the parabolic cooker is supposed to allow in-door cooking, it comes with far too many riders. For instance, the kitchen window should face north, with no buildings or trees to block sunlight. The building should be single-storied with slanting roof. For all practical purposes, this immediately knocks off 90 per cent of urban users;
• in the rural areas cooking with firewood has become so much a part of their culture that an alternate medium will need a lot of effort to popularize.

Some feed-back from users and researchers:

1. In my effort to contact a user I mailed one of the manufacturers of solar cookers, Rohitas, (www.rohitassolarcoker.com) and got in touch with an enthusiastic Executive in-charge, Rahul Singh Talwad,  who is also a user!  He has been using a solar cooker for the last six years and says that it is very versatile and that it can be used even for deep frying and for making ‘Chapattis’ (flat bread made on a griddle) He feels that “the reason (for lack of popularity) is lack of advertising and awareness among the citizens. There are (only a) few medium scaleindustries involved in manufacturing solar cookers and they cannot afford heavy advertising budgets”, he says. He opined that Governmental support is essential. 

2. According to Mr. S. Narayanswamy, a retired senior civil servant of India and the author of a book about solar cooking called ‘Making the Most of Sunshine A Handbook of Solar Energy for the Common Man’, had this to say in one of his interviews:  “One can cook not only food, but also roast nuts, dry vegetables and fruits (taking care to keep the glass lid slightly open to control the heat input), pasteurize water and even bake bread on a clear day at noon. The solar cooker is very versatile machine. A solar cooker kept out in the sun is like an oven kept switched on in the 'on' position. You can place anything in it anytime and take it out when done. What is important for solar cooking is not how hot the sun is but how clear the sunlit sky is. In most places in India one can cook for 70-80% of the days in a year. One can thus solar-cook in all seasons, with unmatched cost-efficiency” Solar cooker is used regularly in his house.

http://solarcooking.org/narayanaswami-interview.htm

3.  “There are many factors at work here. First and foremost, the vast majority of the world's population does not even know that it is possible to cook with the sun. When they find out about it there is almost universal enthusiasm, especially in regions where the gathering of cooking fuel and the process of cooking over a smoky fire is a great burden. There are many factors that need to be in place to make it possible for poor people to solar cook on an on-going basis. The most successful projects have been ones where the need was the greatest, the weather the most favorable, and where the solar cooking promoters have taken a long-range approach to the transition. An example of this is the work by Solar Cookers International in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. http://solarcooking.org/solarcooking-faq.htm:

The technology finds great use in Community Kitchens in India: While solar cookers have not made in-roads into individual homes in India, it is making waves in community kitchens. It proved a saviour in the aftermath of a major earthquake, which hit Gujarat in January 2001. Thousands had been rendered homeless and thanks to the effort of Girija Sharan  of the Indian Institute of Management,  Solar cookers were quickly set up and these fed quake survivors and helped doctors heat water to sterilise equipment!

India has the distinction of having the world’s two largest solar cooking systems. One is installed at Tirupati, a popular pilgrimage in the State of Andhra Pradesh, at a cost of Rs 11.8 million. This has a capacity to cook for 15,000 persons daily!

The other is at Brahmakumari’s Ashram at Mount Abu. Set up with financial assistance from the German Government, this system consists of 24 Scheffler paraboloid reflectors, two each of which are installed to focus sunlight on a square type insulated fin and tube receiver. Twelve such receivers are focused on by 24 reflectors. This has a capacity to cook for 10,000 persons daily!

Click on http://www.ecovantageenergy.com/FAQ/faq20.html for more details.

The massive solar cooking system at the Brahmakumari Ashram in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, India

Phew! The world of solar power is truly awe inspiring! Where is the need to spend millions on exploration to find ‘hidden’ oil resources to run our lives when there is abundant availability of a very ‘visible’ source of tremendous energy staring us in the face? Everywhere where sun shines is a potential location!

Also, who wouldn’t want a pollution free environment? Who wouldn’t want greenery and forests to last forever? Who wouldn’t want a free source of ‘power’? I should think everyone! I am now a convert and am ready to jump into the bandwagon of the promoters of the use of solar energy and make a beginning by promoting the use of solar cookers! Make food when the sun shines is the tune I am singing these days.

Read more about Solar Energy:

• Solar Cookers in India
• Experiments with solar cooking
• A Wow Day in the Sun

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—About our writer: Vilasini, seen here with a cat, is actually a dog lover! Started her stint with Chillibreeze as a writer and is presently the Chief Operating Officer of the content division. This is who she says she is "a Masters in Math by qualification, a Coordinator by birth and a 'people person' by nature." Seeing Chillibreeze become a globally recognized company, adding value to clients and making a difference in the lives of Chilli writers, is her mission in life now! You can reach her at vilasini @ chillibreeze.com

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