Investigation of solar cooker applications for rural and remote areas

The global world requirements for solutions towards nutrition and food production problems for rural and remote areas are in constant growth. The limitation of resources remain its weakest points, water, food and energy are inextricably linked. In the present work, an experimental study conducted to deal with the problem of energy resources lack for food cooking and water boiling for drinking in remote area providing a technique that uses solar energy. A parabolic solar cooker was designed, constructed and tested under the Tunisian climatic conditions. Theoretical models were proposed to simulate the thermal performances of the solar cooker for both processes. The predictive models take into consideration the heat transfers during the process of meat grilling and water boiling and the variation of the climatic conditions. The experimentations carried out for the process of grilling meat and highlighted that the solar cooker is able to reach temperatures levels comparable to conventional cookers. The solar cooker reached temperatures above the 300°C which allows to grill the meat in an acceptable cooking time. Simulations results show that the achieved temperature by the solar cooker is suitable for different cooking processes and water disinfection by boiling. In addition, the proposed solar cooker present a solution in order to reduce the environmental impact of conventional fuels consumption. The solar cooker provides a yearly thermal energy of around 317.63 kWh. A 127.05 kg of wood could be saved which corresponds to equivalent CO_2 emissions of 123.87 kg per year.