Solutions

A good alternative for cooking on wood is easily found: cooking with the sun! The principle is easy indeed: sunlight is reflected onto a black pot. The more sunshine the faster the heating. The majority of African countries has a dry season of 8 to 9 months per year. This means the ability to cook with a solarcooker practically all year round. In other words, 50% of all the wood consumption can be saved by the solar cooker. Combined with the insulation baskets it even results in a higher return of energy saving.

What is a solarcooker?

Using the sun’s free energy to cook is extremely easy with the solarcooker. Many of the existing models are either expensive or unsafe.

Therefore we designed a new solarcooker called Sunicook.

The Sunicook

This unique new model is cheaper than the other existing parabolic cookers. It’s very powerful and very safe to use.

We summarize the advantages:

Composing the SolarCooker

Step 1: Check if all parts are present
Before you start, look carefully at the images on the fitting instructions to verify that all parts are present and where exactly the components should be fitted.
Step 2: Fix the tripod.
The tripod with the legs are secured together with screws and wing nuts.
Step 3: Mount the metal support ring and the harness for the cooking pot.
The support ring of the parabole consists of two identical metal halves; connect them with the wingnuts. Then put the harness for the cooking pot into the support ring. In order to do so, you need to slide the cylinders through the openings in the support ring.
Step 4: Mount the metal support ring to the tripod
The support ring with the support for the cooking pot fits into the slot on top of the harness. Fix them with a long screw and wingnut. The extra wingnut in one of the cylinders of the central axis allows the parabole to be stabilized at a particular angle.
Step 5: Mounting the reflecting lamellae
In your mounting kit you will find 12 reflecting lamellae. Start off with the 2 with a central opening enclosing the cylinders of the central axis. Connect them underneath with the big screw which will allow all lamellae to join. Fix the lamellae onto the metal support ring with 2 screws and a plastic screw which goes on the inside of the reflectors. Then add the additional 10 lamellae to your parabole. Take 2 lamellae each time which you symmetrically adjust opposite each other with the pointed side over the central screw. The lamellae overlap each other in order to get a contiguous surface for a perfect reflection. Tighten the central screw underneath and apply the solar inverter from the inside.

Insulation basket

The insulation basket is made of natural materials stuffed with an insulation lining. The ‘lining’ consists of hay, rice- or millet caps, cotton, a blanket or pillow etc..These baskets can easily be manufactured locally. Dishes remain hot and can continue cooking in the insulation basket. This means a two way energy saving. This ‘technique’ is little known but highly effective.