[Stoves] solar cooker response (changing thread name)

Wed Jun 14 15:59:52 CDT 2017

Still too many assumptions on your part.

GTZ/GIZ was always under pressure from solar cooking enthusiasts to promote their wares. Everywhere the result was the same – rejection.

Complaints in response were:
You didn’t try long enough
You chose a place with too much free wood available, it has to have fuel stress.
You didn’t push hard enough
You didn’t make them available cheap enough
You didn’t give them good enough products (referring to cooking power)
You chose an area without enough space to use them
You chose an area with too little solar resources
You chose an area without an income level high enough to afford them

And so on, till the cows came home. The fanatics remains fanatical and the cooks remained adamant.

So…they chose a place that was as ‘ideal’ as possible. If would work anywhere on earth, it would work in North-West province straight west of Pretoria. In the end, the result was people cooked an average of two meals a week on it. I think that’s correct.

Conclusions?
They can cook
People can afford them
The usage rate does not justify the expense
We are not going to promote them anymore.

I think that’s how it went. Whenever anyone pops in to ask why they don’t push solar cookers, they are handed a copy of that report. If someone comes up with proof they can work at scale, I am sure they will listen.

Regards
Crispin

It is not necessary that a solar cooker have a backup.

Please stop thinking of the cooking market in terms of vague "integrated cooking solution." Solar cookers can do daytime large-scale tasks.

Besides, a three-stone wood fire is always a reliable backup. Cutting its use may not satisfy Kirk Smith as "truly health protective", but that makes no difference.

About the time as I looked into Gelfuel in Malawi, I also talked to some people about solar cookers. My tentative view then (~15 years ago) was that while Gelfuel could be a convenient small-scale backup, solar cooker just did not appeal to cooks.

Possibly another instance of Boy Scout thermodynamicists who didn't find a good market definition and an industrial product designer.

In other words, technical standards or lack thereof probably had the least to do with failure. Because solar cookers have a high capital cost, utilization rates play a more significant role.

Another consideration is the institutional base for marketing and after-sales service. With the kind of locale GIZ experts picked - rural northwest in South Africa - I wonder just who was locally available to source, store solar cookers for display and to serve as a selling and guarantee agent.

No matter what technical standards you labor on, it's the institutional capacity that is the Achilles' heel. Sitting in Europe and selling in South Africa worked with kerosene lamps a hundred years ago because the fuel was available locally. Selling solar cookers that way required a sanity check.

Nikhil

Nikhil Desai
+91 909 995 2080<tel:+91%2090999%2052080>
Skype: nikhildesai888

On Jun 14, 2017, at 8:09 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com<mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:
Dear Dieter

Do you know the name(s) of the test methods used during that comparison, and did any of them make it to being accepted as an international solar cooker standard?

Also, thank you for your clarifications and request that we consider the whole solar sector is not a single 'thing'. Because solar cookers require a backup device, often a biomass stove, we should pay attention on this channel.

Arising out of the Sout‎h African GTZ (at the time) project is the realisation that the biomass stove has to be rapid lighting. By the time the cook gives up on the solar cooked meal, the need for immediate heat is obvious. The report on the project should be available on line. To be practical, the biomass and solar stoves should be marketed as a pair. We toyed with the idea at the time that the biomass stove could be built into the solar cooker.

Generally speaking the solar cooker cost a lot more than a back up stove.

Regards
Crispin
‎
Dear Stovers,

A source of confusion concerning solar cookers is the large variety of devices, all of them called "solar cookers". At the Plataforma Solar/Almeria/Spain there was an International Solar Cooker Test by Eurpoean Committee for Solar Cooking Research in 1994 with 25 participating devices. One of them did not cook at all; the SK parabolic cooker (1.4 m reflector diameter) brougt 48 liters of water to the boil per day. Some cookers had direct access to the pot, others not. Some were only applicable for special tasks, etc.

Thus, general judgments are problematic. Solar cooking is a great opportunity with a high variety of applications. Problems can be overcome, but persistence is necessary, similar e.g. to the development of bicycles.

Kind regards,
Dieter

Am 14.06.2017 um 03:46 schrieb Michael N Trevor:
Here in the Marshall Islands, the another science teacher wanted them thrown away because they were bulky and had no value in classes centered on environmental science and climate change. Of course we are only about 2/3 meters above sea level

On Wed, Jun 14, 2017 at 1:01 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com<mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:
Nikhil

Let's not assume anything.‎ These were the findings of the study which was a multi-year attempt to find out if there was any long term reason to get involved in the promotion of solar cookers.

The conclusion was, no. ‎And they swore them off. For them, if they had a chance anywhere that was the ideal place, and it was not viable.

Very sane.
Crispin

Crispin;

You have listed enough reasons to dispute the sanity of GIZ experts.

Nikhil

On Jun 13, 2017, at 11:35 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at outlook.com<mailto:crispinpigott at outlook.com>> wrote:

Solar concentrating cooker:

One of the main problems encountered with solar cookers (K14, K16 and so on) in the last big GIZ effort in North-West Province of South Africa was, in spite of the rural location, theft of the stoves for sale to scrap merchants. Aluminum is valuable.

Another common problem is wind tipping them over.

A third is wind-blown dust getting into the food.

A fourth is theft of the food.

A fifth is storage of the unit.

People have little space in their homes and storage of a valuable cooker outdoors is not practical.

GIZ spent about 7m Euros on that project and declared no further interest in solar cookers.

Crispin

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