Solar cooker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 1 of 8

Solar cooker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A solar oven or solar cooker is a device which uses

sunlight as its energy source. Because they use no
fuel and they cost nothing to run, humanitarian
organizations are promoting their use worldwide to
help slow deforestation and desertification, caused
by using wood as fuel for cooking. Solar cookers are
a form of outdoor cooking, and are often used in
situations where minimum fuel consumption or fire
risk are considered highly important.

Contents
■ 1 Types
■ 1.1 Box cookers In Ghana, Zouzugu villagers like this woman
■ 1.2 Panel cookers prevent dracunculiasis and other waterborne
■ 1.3 Solar kettles diseases by pasteurizing water in a CooKit solar
■ 1.4 Parabolic cookers cooker.
■ 1.5 Hybrid cookers
■ 2 Using a solar cooker
■ 3 Advantages
■ 4 Disadvantages
■ 5 Solar cooking projects
■ 5.1 Bakeries in Lesotho
■ 5.2 Darfur refugee camps
■ 5.3 Indian solar cooker village
■ 5.4 Gaza
■ 6 See also
■ 7 References
■ 8 External links

Types
There are a variety of types of solar cookers: over 65 major designs and hundreds of variations of them.
The basic principles of all solar cookers are:

■ Concentrating sunlight: Some device, usually a mirror or some type of reflective metal, is used to
concentrate light and heat from the sun into a small cooking area, making the energy more
concentrated and therefore more potent.
■ Converting light to heat: Any black on the inside of a solar cooker, as well as certain materials for
pots, will improve the effectiveness of turning light into heat. A black pan will absorb almost all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cooker 4/11/2010