Equitable clean cooking:-solar Injera stoves with sensible heat storage

Abstract

Abstract Energy poverty is at its highest risk in Africa and yet introducing clean and modern energy in rural Africa demands huge resource. Most African rural use biomass energy in traditional cook stoves. Similarly, Ethiopia’s rural are using traditional stoves with their associated risks. Injera, the highly consumed food in the country is the most energy intensive cooking activity. Authors’ previous researches have proved that it is possible to bake Injera by using solar stoves. However, optimization and safety issues need further study. This paper has focused on demonstrating safe and affordable indirect solar Injera stoves that considered end users economy, ergonomics and versatility of the system. Solar Injera stove with integrated latent heat storage gives good degree of freedom in terms of baking time. However, its high cost remained challenging to implement in rural communities. This research uses a sensible heat storage that lasts for about 30 minutes of baking and avoids the high cost and high-risk concerns of Authors’ previous innovation. Similar to the other works of the authors, this study has also demonstrated Injera baking in the range of 130–150 ºC is best baking temperature range. The symmetry nature of the charging and discharging nature makes these innovations ideal for continuous heat collection and baking. Consequently, it makes it easy to revolutionize clean and affordable solar Injera stoves.