Analysis of solar cooker with thermal storage for remote hilly areas: determination of heating and cooling characteristic time

Solar cooking finds a major application in rural areas of Uttarakhand, India, yet its utilization is still limited due to certain limitation such as intermittent nature of solar radiations. This drawback limits solar cooker in becoming a viable alternate solution of LPG and other pollution causing resources such as wood. In order to cater this problem a numerical analysis of box type solar cooker with storage is carried out. The energy stored in the storage material will keep the cooker warm up to the time when food is consumed. Charging and discharging time analysis is performed in with an aim to understand the effect of storage on solar cooker. Heating and cooling characteristic time are being evaluated and analysed with storage. Thermal performance of box type solar cooker is measured in terms of figures of merit according to BIS standards. The effect of storage has also been analysed in terms of charging and discharging time and first figure of merit of box type solar cooker.it has been observed that during discharging the heat is stored for more duration as compared to the charging time as discharge time is approx. 4-5 hours while charging time for the same amount of insolation is around 3-4 hours.