Precident For Marketing Solar Ovens

Persons Helping People (PHP) is non-profit corporation
based in St. Paul, MN, whose mission is to help alleviate
hunger in developing countries. Their primary product is a prototype solar
cooker.

As part of their effort they hired a marketing consultant for market strategies and recommendations: Spirit West.

Spirit West Management evaluated PHP’s current marketing strategy
based on at material cost of $20. Each unit utilizes sixty-five, 20-ounce
recycled plastic soft drink bottles and a salvaged aluminum
printing plate. Spirit West Management, Inc., points to better results
being likely in the international market.

"There is often initial resistance for using solar
ovens in developing countries because it changes the way
people cook their food. This initial resistance may be
overcome with basic awareness training on issues such as
air quality, inaccessibility and cost of fuel, and water
pasteurization."

Our design would have a much lower cost of training in that it does not significantly change the way people cook their food.

Problem Statement

Currently the status quo method for cooking in Tibet contributes to environmental destruction, health problems and requires time consuming fuel collection. There is a need for a clean, renewable and cheap way to cook food which fits in with the current routine of users.

Poblem Statement Mind Map

Parts of a Business plan

High Altitude Cooking

The Tibetan plateau has and average altitude of 14,763 ft, anything above 3000 feet is considered high altitude cooking. Altitude seems to create a number of complicating factors in cooking which wee need to think about:

- The boiling point of water is 188.07 °F or 86.71 °C at approx 15,000 ft or 4572 m above sea level, verses 212°F or 100°C at sea level. This means water and other liquids evaporate faster and boil at lower temperatures

- Leavening gases in breads and cakes expand more.

- Foods prepared by boiling cook at a lower temperature, and take longer to cook. Cooking time increases. Turning up heat does not help things cook faster. Water cannot exceed its own boiling point — unless if using a pressure cooker.

- Covering food while cooking can help keep things from drying out.

- Because of the longer cooking times and increased evaporation it is very easy to dry out meat while cooking. pressure cooking may be a possible solution.

- Heavy cookware with tight fitting lids can be very helpful in cooking under these conditions.

- Slow cooking simmers at a lower temperature, making it more difficult for the food to reach a safe temperature and for bacteria to be destroyed. A safe temperature of at least 160 °F needs to be reached.

Summary of " Performance and testing of a hot box storage solar cooker"

The general thrust of this article is that it is possible to cook into the evening using a solar cooker that has a used motor oil storage component as part of its design. The storage unit basically consists of a sealed volume of motor oil that sits in the bottom of the cooker. Adding this unit does not significantly affect the cooking temp during the hours of direct sunlight. The solar cooker with storage component was 23C higher than without from 1700 to 2400 h. Cooking trials seemed to indicate that the evening meal could be fully cooked between 1730 h and 2000 h using storage. I see this storage device as a potential add on and improvement which could be purchased by families as an incremental improvement to the product. alternatively this storage unit could be as simple as a sealed standard sized tin can around which the stove has been designed.

Summary of "PARAMETRIC STUDY OF A BOX-TYPE SOLAR COOKER"

A number of parameters can be constrained for the design of our solar cooker using the information in this paper.

1. There is a significant difference in the internal temp of the cooker as the fiber glass insulation thickness is increased up to around 60mm after which the improvement in performance seems to be negligible.

2. The optimum number of reflective panels is two when those panels are angled at 120 and 60 degrees for summer and winter respectively.

3. Considerable improvement in the cooker performance is attained when the cooking pot diameter is increased. The best performance improvement is obtained when the ratio of the pot diameter and the cooker width is equal to unity that is to say that best performance is reached when the pot is as large as will fit in the cooker box. Cooking pot depth seems to be a negligible variable.