Improved Solar PV powered cooker with integrated thermal storage

一项新的研究警告称，随着全球经济因冠状病毒爆发而萎缩，5亿人可能陷入贫困。联合国大学世界发展经济研究所发布的研究表明，发展中国家的贫困水平可能会倒退30年。2020年4月9日世界上有近37亿人使用生物质做饭，这造成了一种负担，包括健康危害（呼吸系统疾病和烧伤）、森林砍伐增加、将很大一部分收入用于燃料、花费大量时间收集燃料，以及减少妇女和女孩的教育机会。几十年来，烹饪能源的主导政策一直是提高生物质燃料的燃烧效率。这一政策基本上失败了，改良炉灶的普及跟不上人口的增长。已经提出了使用电池+太阳能光伏（e-cook）或电动低能压力锅的替代方法的建议。事实证明，前一种方法成本太高，而第二种方法在文化上存在困难，涉及改变人们已有的烹饪模式。该项目将探索第三种选择，通过建立和测试一种低碳、低成本、安全的烹饪能源解决方案，该解决方案使用由太阳能光伏发电充电的真空隔热储热块。英国中小企业Pumped 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存储领域的就业机会和世界一流的专业知识。它还将支持英国在为世界开发清洁烹饪解决方案方面的领导作用。最初的项目使我们能够建造和测试一个绝缘的清洁炊具，它在烹饪功率、绝缘损失和能量储存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个炊具。该项目的扩展将允许建造和测试另外五个炊具。肯尼亚一家以营利为目的的社会企业将对两款炊具进行测试，该企业推广各种更清洁的烹饪解决方案。剩下的三个单元将留在英国进行更结构化和技术的性能测试，并向慈善投资者展示。

"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..