World's largest solar cooker

They come from all corners of India, devoted Pilgrims on their way to Shirdi - a town where a revered Indian Guru Sai Baba lived.

Legend has it, he was man who performed miracles to help the poor.

Almost 100 yrs of him taking Samadhi, Shirdi boasts of a Modern day Miracle - The Worlds Largest Solar Cooking System,

where 73 solar dishes capture energy from the Sun and use it to cook food for 100,000 pilgrims who visit this temple daily.

The Para's raise the temperature of water to up to 650 degree Celsius, generating steam which is used to cook food.

Its the brain child of Deepak and Shirin Gadhia who worked on the design in Germany before bringing the

technology back home to India.

Deepak Gadhia, a specialist in energy conservation and management, floated the "Gadhia Solar Energy Systems Pvt Ltd"

with Shirin Gadhia a Doctorate in Genetic engineering and with the help of German Technology,

 made the Parabolic Solar Steam Cookers.

Talking to CNN, Deepak Gadhia said that "We soon realized what India needed was appropriate technology, not high technology".

In India's case that means taking advantage of it's Geography and Climate. Deepak added "We are blessed with Sun as India is

one of the few countries where there is no word like Good Morning because we take our Sun for granted.

In the North and West India we have about 300 to 330 sunny days and in South India we have about 250 sunny days."

The result is a far cry from a traditional Indian kitchen that uses Gas, Kerosene or Firewood.

"It's so much cleaner now" says Dilip Baba Singh, the chef who is been cooking at the Temple kitchen for 15 years.

"I Like the Solar Cookers" says the chef.

According to Deepak Gadhia "50% of the World's population, not only in India, cooks with open fire."

But here there is no smoke, no trees cut down for wood, no carbon dioxide emitted by burning fuel. There are financial benefits too.

From the house-wife who uses a one pot solar cooker to this the Worlds largest system, there is less money spent on cooking oil.

In Shirdi, the cooks save hundred's of kilograms of Oil everyday, that's a monthly saving of almost 7000 dollars.

Eventually, it is down to Economics.

~~ VIDEO ~~

Catch the Video at : 

http://forum.spiritualindia.org/videos-photos-worlds-largest-solar-steam-cooker-in-shirdi-t34824.0.html

or

http://saibabadwarkamai.com/forum/index.php?topic=3916.0

~~ HOW DOES THE PARABOLIC SOLAR STEAM COOKING SYSTEM WORK ~~

The Solar Steam cooking system installed at Shirdi has parabolic concentrators / dishes (called Scheffler dishes after its inventor)

installed on the terrace of Sai Prasad Building No.2.

A Parabolic type concentrating Solar Steam cooking system was commissioned at Shri Saibaba Sansthan, Shirdi on 24th May`2002.

This system received financial assistance of 50% of the total project cost from the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, GoI.

The Solar parabolic concentrators reflect and concentrate the Solar rays on the receivers placed in focus.

Water coming from the steam headers placed above the header centres is received from bottom of the receiver,

gets heated up to due to heat generated (about 5500C) due to concentration of solar rays on the receivers and

get pushed up via top pipe of receiver into the header.

The principle of anything that gets heated is pushed up is called Thermo-Siphon principle.

The advantage of thermosiphon principle is no pumping (thus no electricity) is needed to create circulation since the

heated water is pushed into the header and cooler water from the same headers come into the receivers for heating.

The cycle continues till it reaches 1000C and gets converted into steam.

The header is only filled and thus steam generated gets accumulated in the upper half of the steam header.

The temperature and pressure of steam generated keeps on increasing and heat is stored till the steam

is drawn for cooking into the kitchen.

All the dishes rotate continuously along with the movement of the sun, always concentrating the solar rays on the receivers.

This movement of concentrators is called tracking, which is continuous and is controlled by the fully automatic timer mechanism.

A Timer mechanism powered by Solar cells (which convert sunlight into electricity) gradually rotates the mirrors,

so that they constantly face the sun as it moves across the sky. The entire system is run by one operator.

Only once during the day i.e. in the early morning the dishes have to be turned manually onto the morning position,

subsequently the automatic tracking takes over.

The speciality of this solar cooker invented by Wolfgang Scheffler is that it generates steam unlike the earlier models

where the cooking pot was placed at the focal point of the parabolic minor.

This system is integrated with the existing boiler to ensure continued cooking even at night and during rain or cloudy weather.

The solar cooking system installed at Shirdi follows the Thermosiphon principle and so does not need electrical power or pump.

~~ THE INAUGURATION ~~

PTI

Friday, 31st July`2009

New Delhi : The World's largest solar steam system installed in Shirdi's "Sai Prasadalaya" by the Sai Sansthan,

has been designed for cooking meals for 20,000 devotees daily, an official release said.

On Thursday, 30th July`2009 the Solar Steam cooking system, costing Rs 1.33 crore,

was Inaugurated by New & Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah.

The Centre has granted a subsidy of Rs 58.40 lakh so that Sri Sai Baba Sansthan can save every year one lakh kg of LPG,

estimated to cost Rs 20,00,000. Some of the other large solar steam cooking systems installed include one at

Mount Abu in Rajasthan for 10,000 people per day & Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh for 15,000 people a day.

The Steam System at Shirdi generates about 3,500 kg of steam every day. The System will generate Steam for Cooking

even in the absence of electricity to run the feed water pump for circulating water in the system.