83734 Hausham
89344 Aislingen
Tel/Fax: 09075/701338
| Berghof 112 83734 Hausham |
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| G.v.Werdenbergstr.6 89344 Aislingen Tel/Fax: 09075/701338 |
The Idea
In many developing countries energy (eg for cooking) is rare, whilst we consume it in excess. For a joint development on our planet it makes sense to share our technological, financial and material resources in an ecologically and socially agreeable way to improve the availability of energy and thereby living conditions for all people.
To ensure permanent, appropriate and non-harmful ways of energy supply it is also very important to re-think the way energy is used in the "developed" countries.
Only this way a higher quality of living can be guarantied for everybody on a peaceful and long-term bases.
Especially in dry regions it becomes more and more difficult to find wood, in rural areas women and children often have to walk for hours every day to collect enough, in the cities wood prices are rising even above the price of the food that needs to get cooked.
Using the sun can save a lot of time or money, and thinking about progressing desertification it is of direct ecological advantage.
Solare Brücke is holding practical seminars about low-tech solar technologies all over the world (mostly for constructing solar community kitchens). We are supporting our partners in developing countries with know-how, with the long-term aim of creating completely independent workshops run by local people. No financial or technological dependence must be caused.
Certainly not all projects are equally successful. This is why we find it important that our partners show enough self initiative and motivation, which becomes explicit in the amount of work and money they are willing to contribute.
For Community Kitchens at schools, hospitals, universities,... the parabolic fix focus reflectors developed by Wolfgang Scheffler have proved a success.
All sunlight hitting the 8m² mirror-surface is concentrated under a hot plate inside the house. This way every reflector delivers an average cooking power of 2,6kW, which is enough to cook for about 50 people.
Presently about 750 reflectors are in use all over the world. Like the solar box cockers the reflectors are made from locally available materials.
SK14
Designed by Dr. Ing. D. Seifert and promoted by EG - Solar ( a foreign aid initiative of the State Technical College of Altoetting ).A 1.5 m² parabolic bowl concentrates the sunlight onto the black cooking vessel supported in its centre and heats its content to boiling point. A very efficient and easy to build solar cooker.
| Solar Box Coockers, designed by Uli Oehler of the ULOG -Group, are a technologically simple and easy to handle way for private people to cook without gas or wood. The filled cooking vessels are simply placed inside the thermally insulated glazed box and exposed to the sun. Within 2 to 3 hours, the contents gets deliciously cooked without stirring or any other attention to it. The box cookers work perfectly for baking and canning, too. |
One example ...
Deepak and Shirin Gadhia integrated a workshop for producing solar community kitchens into their eco-center in Gujarat, India. With the help of Solare Brücke and our partner organisations Ulog, Globosol and Eg-Solar they managed to set up a business which is working at full capacity. In 1996/97 for example they installed a solar kitchen of 24 reflectors at a spiritual university in Mont Abu (Radjasthan). The reflectors are set up on the flat roof of the building and create steam which is conducted into the downstairs kitchen catering for 1000 students.
Impressed by its superb performance, now the operator in Abu (Brahma Kumaris) has installed another solar steam system in their headquaters, comprising of 84 reflectors, catering for up to 18000 people.
A number of steamkitchens has been built since, by variouse manufacturers.
Using the Sun in Europe
There is a great, yet unexploited potential for using solar energy in Europe, - not just in high-tech applications.
Showing that solar cooking is not only a „third-world-technology" but holds realistic possibilities for use in our own country is one of our goals.
Therefore we are informing people by practical demonstrations at schools, exhibitions, fairs etc. about efficient and technologically simple ways of using the sun at our geographical latitude (cooking with solar box cookers, SK 14 and Scheffler-reflectors, heating up water with simple collectors).
Our mobile solar kitchen is used as an energetically self-sufficient catering unit for parties, fairs, etc. Its capacity is sufficient for about 30 meals.
Technical Developments
for the success of solar cooking it is of great importance to further improve the convenience of the cookers in order to meet the needs and wishes of the users in the best way possible. In addition to that heat storage devices have to be improved , to make cooking at night easier and to cover no-sunshine periods.
Recently we are also adapting the Scheffler-reflector of 800 W power for small scale/domestic use in Europe.
