Solar cooking : the development of a thermal battery

Abstract

There are many rural area in the world where cooking fuel is very scarce. One solution to this problem is to use solar energy to cook food. However most people around the world like to cook large meals at night, when the sun is not shining. The objective of this thesis was to design and build a thermal battery that could store thermal energy from the sun during the day and retain that heat until it was needed for cooking. The final battery design was a large block of concrete with a system of copper fins running though it. Three main tests were conducted. The first two utilized an array of infra red light bulbs to heat up the array, and did store enough energy to cook with. However in the third test the battery was heated using a hot plate, and after the storage period still retained enough heat to boil 20 cups of water. This is enough usable cooking energy to feed most families.