Sustainable mechanism to popularise round the clock indoor solar cooking – Part I: Global status

Abstract

A significant amount of domestic energy consumption is for cooking in the majority of the countries. However, open fire cooking using wood and charcoal releases harmful climate-warming emissions. Thus, developing a clean cooking technology is the need of the hour, which includes electric and solar cookers. In most cases, the former technique involves converting thermal energy to high-grade electrical energy and converting it back to thermal energy is energy-splurging, if not criminal wastage of energy. The latter option uses either non-concentrated or concentrated solar thermal energy directly for cooking and, therefore, is more efficient (as high as optical collection efficiency) besides helping reverse global warming. Low-cost solar cookers for outdoor cooking have been available for a long time. However, it has low social acceptance due to the inconvenience of cooking outdoors rather than in the kitchen and the inability to cook during off-sunshine hours. Hence, in line with the current need, this review explores numerous designs of solar cookers intended for indoor usage, which includes thermosyphon systems, Scheffler cookers, pumped systems, and other innovative designs. Most of the designs reviewed are operated in a shaded area rather than a true indoor system. Although pumped systems solve this issue, the auxiliary power requirement and reliability are questionable. Hence, a few designs are handpicked for their novelty and ease of indoor cooking. Solar chulha, being one of them, has great prospects as the design involves a sustainable mechanism for round-the-clock indoor solar cooking. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd