Solar cooking theory

Two friends (eD and Duncan) and I are running some workshops on solar cooking at Sunrise Music Festival later this week.

I'm taking along a poster with some useful theory on the solar resource in both Yeovil (where the festival is) and Europe in general, in case any geeks like me want know about it - if you'd like to take a look click on the small image below to see a larger readable version...

The current weather forecast for the Festival is crap, fingers crossed for an improvement or else our cookers won't do their thing!

Solar cooking at Sunrise Festival 2007
Click on image to see larger version

Solar oven

Duncan and I previously made solar cooker mk#1, using an old satellite dish and kitchen foil, and with the addition of a black-bottomed kettle it's been happily capturing energy from the sun and producing hot water for tea.

Next up is to try a different approach and make a solar oven (as opposed to cooker). A solar oven works in a similar manner to a typical kitchen oven - i.e. it's a insulated box in which the air temperature rises, cooking food in the process. (The solar cooker works differently, by reflecting and focusing the sun onto a small area, analogous to the hob on your kitchen cooker).

Here's the insulated box:

Old drawer, lined with polystyrene, with kitchen-foil-lined cardboard innermost

A black surface will be incorporated into the box to absorb the radiative heat of the sun, in order to heat the air within the box and cook our food. To increase the energy capture of the oven, a reflective 'hood' can be made, with the purpose of collecting a larger area of sunlight and directing into the box. My tipi-towing friend eD and I made this hood yesterday evening, and it flat-packs so that we can transport it to Sunrise Festival this week:



Here's the hood in place, ready for reflective foil (to be glued in place upon arrival), sun and cooking ingredients:

I'll show it action in a few days time!