India is well-known for delicious food, and the kitchen is considered to be a sacred place in any Indian home. And now India has something else to be proud of: the world’s largest solar kitchen. The system has been installed as a collaboration between the Academy for a Better World and Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, with technology from Solare-Brücke, Germany. With 84 receivers and cooking at 650 degrees, the system can produce up to 38,500 meals a day when the sun is at its peak!
The solar kitchen has been set up at Taleti, near Mount Abu, situated at a height of 1219 m above sea level in Rajasthan. It boasts of a six-module solar steam cooking system and a total of 84 parabolic dish concentrators shell type receivers. Each oval parabolic concentrator has a reflective surface area of 9.2 square meters, and reflect sunlight on the receivers by special white glass pieces. Steam is collected in the header pipes, which is then directed via insulated pipes to cooking vessels in the kitchen.
The system generates temperatures of up to about 650 degrees, and 3500-4000 kg of steam per day. The food is cooked in 200-400 liters capacity cooking pots, producing an average of 20,000 meals a day, and up to 38,500 meals per day during periods of peak solar radiation maximum.
A total of $5 million has been spent on this endeavor. The Academy for a Better World is interested in renewable energy technologies and the program is part of a special demonstration project of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India.
+ Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University
+ Academy for a Better World
Via Got2BeGreen
This is so cool. This cuts the million year link it takes for the sun to produce stored energy in fossil fuels. It only takes 8.13 minutes for light to reach us from the sun. What a time saver!
It seems as focusing solar energy to produce heat is gaining momentum, there is another company that recently announced a power station which converts heat-to-energy and it claims to be the cheapest source of solar power currently available.
Yes, how a save of time, imagine people at the take-away have to wait millions of years for their curry. Anyway, a great application of sun-energy, this time without (the inefficient) interference of electricity. Great stuff, nice to know that upcomming economies are also active on the green front, and not only burning fossil fuels at a high rate to achieve an economy catch-up.
[...] India is well-known for delicious food, and the kitchen is considered to be a sacred place in any Indian home. And now India has something else to be proud of: the world’s largest solar kitchen.http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/17/world%e2%80%99s-largest-solar-kitchen-in-india-can-cook-upto-385... [...]
[...] Inhabitat Share It Hide [...]
20,000 meals/day * 260 work days/year = 5.2MM meals served/year.
At a $5MM investment, they have a $1/meal overhead, for the first year.
I wonder what the maintenance costs of the system are over time.
It appears in this case that not only have they found a Green Solution, but one that is low cost and after recouping the initial cost, actually cost saving.
I would have thought a system based on the solar cookers used in the war would be more efficient, this thing is just oo big
ı am waiting
[...] Nos hemos enterado leyendo Inhabitat [...]
[...] terms, the project funding is quite small considering the size of the cities and the costs of solar equipment in today’s market. However, combined efforts from the DOE, industry cost share and funding [...]
I will like to learn whether the steam based cooking system will also have the facility to bake, grill, fry and roast or will it produce only steamed food. Also, how is safety managed in this high pressure steam environment. Incidentally, US$1/meal is a huge amount for an economy where a hot meal is availabe for equivalent of US12 cents. I believe that even for an economy like the US, an overhead of $1per meal will be too high for the ordinary citizen.
I am impressed! I found this post through http://www.solarcooker-at-cantinawest.com. I live in Niger – the world’s least developed country in the world – and am sure that solar cooking is a key element to a sustainable future for Africa.
This solar cooker is a beast