Improved Solar PV powered cooker with integrated thermal storage

一项新的研究警告说，随着冠状病毒爆发导致世界经济萎缩，5亿人可能会陷入贫困。联合国大学世界发展经济研究所发布的一项研究显示，发展中国家的贫困水平可能会倒退长达30年。2020年4月9日，世界上几乎有37亿人使用生物质做饭，这造成了包括健康危害(呼吸系统疾病和烧伤)的负担，森林砍伐加剧，收入的很大一部分花在燃料上，花在收集燃料上的时间，以及妇女和女孩受教育的机会减少。几十年来，对烹饪能源的主导政策一直是提高生物质燃料的燃烧效率。这一政策普遍失败了，改进后的炉灶的普及跟不上人口增长的步伐。已经提出了使用电子烹饪的替代方法，要么使用电池+太阳能光伏(电子烹饪)，要么使用电力供电的低能量高压锅。第一种方法被证明过于昂贵，第二种方法涉及改变人们现有的烹饪模式，这在文化上是困难的。该项目将通过构建和测试一种低碳、低成本、安全的烹饪能源解决方案来探索第三种选择，该解决方案使用从太阳能PV充电的真空绝缘储热块。英国中小企业Pumping HEAT开发了一种改变游戏规则的储热材料并获得了专利，该材料在全球范围内有多种应用。该项目将有助于保护和创造英国在快速增长的能源储存领域的就业机会和世界级专业知识。它还将支持英国在开发世界清洁烹饪解决方案方面的领先地位。最初的项目使我们能够建造和测试一种绝缘清洁炉子，该炉子在烹饪功率、绝缘损耗和存储能量方面达到了所需的所有技术目标。肯尼亚的一个合作组织正在测试第一款电饭煲。该项目的扩展将允许建造和测试另外五个灶具。一家营利性社会企业将在肯尼亚测试两种炉具，该企业推广一系列更清洁的烹饪解决方案。剩下的三个部门将留在英国，进行更具结构性和技术性的业绩测试，并向慈善投资者进行示范。

"Half a billion people could be pushed into poverty as economies around the world shrink because of the coronavirus outbreak, a new study has warned. Poverty levels in developing countries could be set back by up to 30 years, research released by the United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research." 9th April 2020Almost 3.7 billion people in the world use biomass for cooking, which creates a burden that includes health hazards (respiratory illnesses and burns), increased deforestation, spending a large proportion of income on fuel, time spent collecting fuels, and reduced educational opportunities for women and girls. For decades the dominant policy on cooking energy has been to improve the combustion efficiency of biomass fuels. This policy has broadly failed and the dispersal of improved cookstoves is not keeping up with population growth. Proposals have been made for alternative approaches using electrical cooking either from batteries + solar PV (e-cook) or from electrically powered low energy pressure cookers. The first of these has proved too expensive and the second is culturally difficult involving changes to people's established cooking patterns.The project will explore a third option by building and testing a low carbon, low cost, secure cooking energy solution, which uses a vacuum insulated heat storage block charged from solar PV.Pumped Heat, a UK SME, have developed and patented a game changing thermal storage material that has multiple applications worldwide. This project will help to protect and create UK jobs and world class expertise in the rapidly growing field of energy storage. It will also support the UK's leading role in development of a clean cooking solution for the world.The original project has allowed us to build and test an insulated clean cooker that has hit all of the technical targets needed in terms of cooking power, insulation losses, and energy stored. This first cooker is being tested by a partner organisation in Kenya. The extension to this project will allow the build and testing of five further cookers. Two cookers will be tested in Kenya by a for-profit social enterprise that promotes a wide range of cleaner cooking solutions. The remaining three units will remain in the UK for more structured and technical testing of performance and demonstration to philanthropic investors..