Technology and Business News

For ages solar cookers were made use of in 3rd world countries where electricity and gas was not readily available. Nowadays various solar oven designs are not only used in these regions to make food, but also to boil water for purification.

But just because first world countries have enough energy supplies, it does not excuse us from using solar cooking at home and helping to conserve that energy. What’s great about solar cooking is that it uses the power of the sun to cook food - though it may take 4 times longer than a conventional oven.

There have been a variety of unique solar oven designs thought up, but they can be categorized in three shapes: parabolic, panel, and box cookers.

Parabolic Solar Cooker:

A parabolic solar cooker, as the name implies, is made from any reflective material in a parabolic (bowl like) shape that focuses sunlight to a single point. It is the most effective at cooking food quickly and efficiently, however, it tends to be more expensive and hard to make by hand. Furthermore, its fixed shape makes it less portable and raises some safety concerns.

Panel Cooker:

Similar to the parabolic design, the panel design focuses sunlight to a single point. However, it is less rounded and made up of a number of small, flat, reflective panels.

The advantage of the panel shape is that it cheap to build, it can be folded away when not used, and therefore it is great for traveling. It may not be as effective as a parabolic design, but you can simply make one by shaping one of those foldaway windscreen blinds into parabolic shape.

Box Cooker:

Very different to the other two designs, the box cooker works by trapping the sun’s heat, instead of simply focusing it on a central point. It is designed in such a way that it let’s light in, but stops that heat from escaping. As more sunlight comes in, the hotter it gets.

What makes the box cooker appealing is that is really easy to make - the simplest design requires a cardboard box, a piece of clear glass or plastic, and tin foil - and it can cook a large portion of food at a time.

What’s great about most solar oven designs is that they can be built from everyday materials in a few short hours. Like a conventional oven or stove, they can be used to prepare anything - such as roasted meat, steamed vegetables, rice, fried eggs, and baked bread. And since a solar cooker is used outside, it will not heat up the kitchen and place stress on your cooling system.

To think that - according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey - almost 75% of Americans prepare at least one hot meal at home per day, 33% prepare two or more, a large amount of electricity can be saved if more of us try solar oven design at home.

So why not solar cooking out for yourself. You really have nothing to lose. If you are not willing to spend money on a professionally made design, why not build one at home with the kids - the internet provides a whole host of free blueprints and instructions, so try it out and have fun saving power.