Development and Performance Evaluation of High Insulation Box Type Solar Cooker

Abstract

This paper presents the design, development and performance evaluation of high insulation box type solar cooker. The solar cooker is capable of boiling food for five persons per day. Stagnation test and the water boiling test of the solar cooker were performed during April, 2017. The resulting values of first figure of merit (F1), second figure of merit (F2) and standardized cooking power (Ps) was 0.1200C, 0.424 and 45 W, respectively, which categorized the cooker as class A. This high insulation solar cooker was found to have high values of F1 and F2 (F1>0.12 and F2>0.40) during different seasons of the year. The overall efficiency of the high insulation box type solar cooker was 26.5%. The cooker is estimated to save 1293.8 MJ of energy per year. The cost of the cooker is INR 4500.00. The payback period of the solar cooker as compared to firewood, electricity, coal, LPG and kerosene based cooking was estimated to be 1.49, 1.94, 2.42, 3.12 and 6.99 years, respectively. The high insulation box type solar cooker can reduce about 815.30 kg of CO2 emission on annual basis.