Solar Cooking
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Welcome to the Solar Cookers World NetworkSponsored by Solar Cookers International
112 Countries · 490 NGOs · 542 Individuals · 170 Manufacturers · 335 Designs · 65 Plans
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The Solar Cookers World Network is an alliance of nearly 500 non-governmental organizations (NGOs), manufacturers, and individuals actively promoting solar cooking around the world. This wiki-based site allows Network participants to share information and collaborate on projects and research. Solar cooking is increasingly seen as a valuable component in strategies to reduce deforestation and respiratory disease resulting from cooking with fuelwood. If you are a solar cooking promotor, designer, or manufacturer, and you would like to be included in the Network, fill out this online form.

This site provides an introduction to solar cooking along with dozens of simple construction plans. Information is also provided about where to buy a solar cooker in your area. NGOs or individuals wanting to promote solar cooking will find a compendium of information and resources to help with their projects. Visit individual country pages to explore solar cooking activities and connect with others working on solar cooking projects there. Check the Calendar of events for activities in your area.

Solar cooking news from around the world

October 2012

  • Parabolic solar cookers delivered to Afghanistan's remote Wakhan Corridor - The Kirghiz tribe live at the end of this slender finger of land in northeastern Afghanistan. Their primary fuel source for cooking has been dried yak dung, creating smokey conditions in their yurts. The buffalo-like yaks are used for most of their transportation needs. In June, Jeff Waalkes in Kirghizstan and Grace Magney in Kabul were able to deliver ten parabolic solar cookers to the tribe. Grace organized the procurement and had the cookers loaded onto a truck. Jeff's responsibility was to get the truck into the Wakhan Corridor, and where the road petered out, strap everything including the solar cookers to the backs of yaks to deliver them to the Kirghiz tribe. Initially hesitant, residents were soon cooking food and boiling water.
  • Global conservation organization adopts solar cooking resolution sponsored by Solar Household Energy - The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has embraced a strong resolution sponsored by Solar Household Energy calling for increased support for solar cooking efforts worldwide. The measure was adopted in September at IUCN’s quadrennial World Conservation Congress in Jeju, South Korea. The organization recognized the health hazards of cooking over biomass fires, and the availability of current solar cooking technologies. Efforts continue to develop solar cookers that offer increased efficiency, are cost-effective to produce and distribute, and are sturdy enough to withstand extended use. Read more...
Great picture of oven activity

Students set a world record baking cookies with solar ovens to raise funds for solar cooking efforts in Haiti.

  • Students set a world record and bring awareness to the benefits of solar cooking - Students, parents, faculty, staff and friends gathered at Miami Country Day School located in Miami, Florida, USA on Friday, April 20, 2012 and set the Guinness Book of World Records™ for “The Most Cookies Baked in One Hour Using Solar Ovens”. Trays of unbaked cookies were placed in 40 smaller solar ovens, as well as, two Villager solar ovens. After the cookies were baked and 1225 counted....a World Record was set! The event raised over $18,000 USD, which was used to send the 40 solar ovens and a Villager oven to Haiti. The cookies baked in the event were donated to Feeding South Florida. The event was lead by Matthew Cohen, a high school junior who has been actively involved in the solar oven movement for the past nine years. Cohen launched the website Power from the Sun to educate people worldwide on the benefits of solar cooking and help raise money to send solar ovens to needy families in Haiti. Cohen’s latest project is aptly named “The Life Of The Traveling Solar Oven” and encourages students, parents, teachers, and local businesses to sponsor a solar oven. Participants are asked to use the solar oven, document their experience with video or photos and share it on their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/PowerFromTheSun. The event will conclude on Earth Day 2013.

September 2012

Solvatten

Solvatten water pasteurization system

  • Swedish and Lutheran organizations sponsor water pasteurization efforts in Kenya - The Swedish Church and the aid agency Lutheran World Federation (LWF) are launching Solvatten in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. The goal of the project is to reduce environmental degradation by enabling people to use alternative sources of energy in the camp and in the host community that surrounds it. 

Supply of fire wood has been a problem in Kakuma region since the camp was set up in 1992 but it has escalated in the past two years, despite that the refugees are not allowed to harvest firewood directly from the bushes. This is attributed to the continuous massive influx of people into the camp leading to the environmental degradation through the harvesting of sticks from the available vegetation for firewood. Firewood has become very expensive and the UNHCR struggles to purchase and supply fuel to the growing population of refugees in the camp. The Solvatten is a solar water pasteurization device.

August 2012

Farchana Refugee Camp August 2012

Refugee volunteers build solar cookers as part of the CORD project at the Farchana Refugee Camp.

  • Solar cooker project in Chad is in full swing - In the Farchana Refugee Camp, a team of ten volunteers, refugees themselves, are putting together 2350 cookers! The cookers help prevent conflict between the Sudanese population in the camps and the local Chadian community, who are both competing for scarce firewood. Women, who traditionally collect wood to cook with, face violence outside the camps. The solar cookers need only the sun to cook food, one thing Chad has in abundance! Read more...
  • New video shows Vietnam Solar Serve's extensive solar cooking projects - A team of three French students came to visit Vietnam Solar Serve's center. They had organized Global Universities Social Trip (GUST), a project that aims to raise students' awareness of social entrepreneurship in Asia. For six months they met many social entrepreneurs throughout Asia who worked on problems such as energy, communication, waste, water, and housing. They created videos that presented the entrepreneurs' projects, the social issues they wanted to solve, and the challenges they had to overcome. Click the image on the right to see a video that they made on their visit to our Solar Serve Center in Danang. For more information on the Gust Project, visit the: http://www.gustproject.com or visit their Vimeo Channel.
  • Dissertation posted: Identifying the barriers to the deployment of solar cookers in the energy-poor households of sub-Saharan Africa - Sarah Cochetel
  • New video from Cord showing their solar cooking project in refugee camps in Chad

July 2012

June 2012

  • Solar cooking heads to The Discovery Center - Central Valley Solar Cookers, founded by Carl Peters, is one of the most successful solar cooking clubs in the USA. Located in Fresno, California, the group now has 111 members. They recently had their First Annual Solar Cooking Festival, which was a huge success. They now have enough money to buy materials to build a solar cooker for use at The Discovery Center, a free non-profit science education facility. The park is fully self-funded and situated on six acres. Carl thinks a panel type cooker would be the safest type. It would be a nice addition to ultimately see solar cookers in our parks instead of only charcoal and wood burning BBQs.
  • New video: The need for a more durable solar cooker for desert refugee camps
  • Solar Cooking Hits the Mainstream - StarTides (Read more...)

May 2012

16-brick rocket stove Mexico 2012

Sixteen-brick Rocket Stove

  • Students flood southern Mexico integrated cooking class - Volunteers from the Rotary Club of Fresno, California, led by Wilfred and Marie Pimentel, teamed up with the Rotary Club of Tapachula Centenario, Mexico, to host a five-day integrated cooking workshop in Tapachula. This is the tenth grant project completed in Mexico by the Rotary Club of Fresno. Although only twenty students were expected to attend, ninety-one arrived on opening day to participate—a clear indication of the desperate need for affordable fuel-saving cooking devices in this region. Local instructors and expert solar cooks from Torreon and Oaxaca led the workshop. Participants learned to build three types of rocket stoves: mud and chopped grass, five gallon tin can, and sixteen brick, which were used to make tortillas. Students cut out cardboard sheets and glued them to pieces of aluminum foil to make solar panel CooKits. A variety of meat, vegetable and egg dishes were prepared with the CooKits along with desserts like pineapple upside down cake. Students also learned how to use WAPI’s to pasteurize water with a CooKit. Finally, the instructors showed their ninety-one students how easy it is to make a retained heat cooker with a pillowcases and crumpled newspaper stuffed into a woven basket. Read more...
Solar_Cookers_-_Saving_Madagascar's_Forests_Global_3000

Solar Cookers - Saving Madagascar's Forests Global 3000

Deutsche Welle covers the work of ADES in Madagascar

April 2012

  • Alternative energy organization in Vietnam enthusiastically promotes solar cooking - Vietnam Solar Serve has provided a recent video tour of their production facility in Da Nang, Vietnam. The resourceful group has been adapting solar cooker designs from other countries and developing their own solar energy products since 2000. Looking at the larger alternative energy picture, they also promote photovoltaic panels made in Vietnam and are working on designs for water and wind power turbines. They manufacture a variety of parabolic and box solar cookers.

March 2012

Golden Temple, Punjab, India 3-19-12

Golden Temple, Punjab, India

  • Solar cooking set to help preserve the Golden Temple in Punjab, India - To save the Golden Temple from the ill effects of pollution, the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) is developing a plan to prepare a daily meal of Langar dal with the help of a solar steam cooking system. PEDA is the governmental agency promoting renewable energy within Punjab, India. To prepare Langar dal for 50,000 to 60,000 devotees daily at the Golden Temple requires one ton (909 kg) of dal to be cooked. A recent study has shown cooking dal with the help of steam will save at least 25 LPG cylinders per day and also reduce the effects of air pollution on the Golden Temple. PEDA chairman Manjeet Singh said that PEDA would bear the entire project cost.
Solar Oven Partners March 2008 2

Five South Dakota State University football players volunteered to help Haiti Solar Oven Partners load a container with 1000 unassembled solar box cookers destined for Haiti.

  • South Dakota, USA nonprofit has delivered thousands of solar cookers to Haiti - Haiti Solar Oven Partners passed a milestone this spring by delivering another 1000 solar cookers as part of the relief effort resulting from the 2010 earthquake. This brings the total number of cookers they have taken to Haiti to over 5000. They had begun having solar cooking workshops in the country before the earthquake and have since stepped up their efforts. Currently, they are conducting an evaluation of their Haiti projects.
  • Global conservation gathering is approached with the solar cooking option - The IUCN World Conservation Congress is the world’s largest conservation event. Held every four years, the Congress aims to improve how we manage our natural environment for human, social and economic development. It will take place from September 6-15, 2012 in Jeju, Republic of Korea. Leaders from government, the public sector, non-governmental organizations, business, UN agencies and social organizations will discuss, debate and decide solutions for the world’s most pressing environment and development issues. The upcoming Congress has been approached by Solar Household Energy to present the case for solar cooking. Read more of their proposal.
  • Solar Cooker Review - The March 2012 issue is now available online.
  • Spanish cooperative finds common ground promoting solar cooking - Sol Solidari was formed in 2008 by environmental and sanitation practitioners in Spain wanting to combine their expertise to help primarily rural countries in Africa. Most of their activity has centered on the promotion of solar cooking. Whenever is possible, the cookers are locally manufactured, and workshops on their use are carried out with the help of local leaders. Initially the cookers are distributed for free to create better exposure among the villagers. In the second phase, the solar cookers are sold, but mostly subsidized by Sol Solidari. Until now, the projects have taken place in Ethiopia and Mali, but future plans include Cameroon and South Africa.
Sol Solidari panaramic workshop, 2-25-12

Sol Solidari solar cooking workshop



For older news, please see Solar cooking news archive.

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