Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Optimization and design of energy transport system for solar cooking application
U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand *
Centre for Electronics Design and Technology, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 16 April 2010
Received in revised form 8 June 2010
Accepted 21 July 2010
Available online 24 August 2010
Keywords:
Hybrid solar cooking
Energy optimization
Maximum power point tracking
Flow optimization
Energy transport
Liqueed Petroleum Gas (LPG)

a b s t r a c t
This paper proposes a hybrid solar cooking system where the solar energy is transported to the kitchen.
The thermal energy source is used to supplement the Liqueed Petroleum Gas (LPG) that is in common
use in kitchens. Solar energy is transferred to the kitchen by means of a circulating uid. Energy collected
from sun is maximized by changing the ow rate dynamically. This paper proposes a concept of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for the solar thermal collector. The diameter of the pipe is selected
to optimize the overall energy transfer. Design and sizing of different components of the system are
explained. Concept of MPPT is validated with simulation and experimental results.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Wood cut for cooking purpose contributes to the 16 million
hectares of forest destroyed annually, which is causing indoor air
pollution. The energy for cooking accounts for 36% of the total primary energy consumption. The cooking energy demand in rural
areas of developing countries is largely met with bio-fuels such
as fuel wood, charcoal, agricultural residues and dung cakes,
whereas Liqueed Petroleum Gas (LPG) or electricity is predominantly used in urban areas. Different energy sources for cooking
have been evaluated in [14] and LPG stove is found to be the most
preferred cooking device in India. Solar cookers are expected to
contribute considerably towards meeting domestic cooking energy
requirement in a country blessed with abundant sunshine [5].
Solar cooker is an environmental friendly and cost effective device for harnessing solar energy. The conventional box type cooker
design has been studied and modied since 1980s and various designs and their characteristics have been extensively investigated
in [6]. Box type cooker [7] with multiple reectors are easy to build
and use, but cooking has to be done outdoor and it is slow. Hot box
ovens [8] and concentrating solar cookers are cheap and effective;
however they are limited to cooking during clear sky periods.
Though parabolic cookers [9] are used for fast cooking, cooking rate
cannot be controlled and it is potentially hazardous due to focusing
of sun beam.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 80 2360 0810; fax: +91 80 2293 2290.
E-mail address: lums@cedt.iisc.ernet.in (L. Umanand).
0306-2619/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.07.020

Solar cooking with energy storage using pressurized water vessel [10], phase change material [11], pebble bed thermal energy
storage (TES) [12] and box-type solar cooker with auxiliary heating
[13] have been proposed, which require the cook to work outdoors
in rural areas and on roof tops in urban areas. A split-system solar
cooker exists, which has its at-plate collector outdoors and the
cooking chamber inside the kitchen, with heat pipes transferring
the energy between the two [7,14]. Multipurpose solar cooker
cum water heater [15] and single basin solar still with PCM storage
[16] have been proposed. Heat exchanger for solar hot water storage system [17] has been proposed. For a solar cooking system to
be accepted and adopted in most of the households, the following
objectives have to be satised.
1. The cooking should be done without moving out of the
kitchens.
2. A reduction in the use of conventional energy.
3. Cooking can be carried out at any time of day.
4. Time taken for cooking must be comparable with conventional
cooking.
In order to satisfy the above mentioned objectives, a hybrid solar cooking technique is proposed wherein the solar energy is
transferred to the kitchen and supplements the conventional LPG
source.
Consumption of conventional cooking fuel is minimized by
maximizing the energy obtained from sun. This maximization is
done by varying the ow rate of the uid that is being circulated through the solar thermal collector. At lower ow rates,

U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

243

Nomenclature
A
Aa
Acoll
Ao
APV
Ar
Cbattery
Cp
Cpf
CR
D
DOD
Do
Di
Dno-sun
Ereq1
Estorage
F0
FR
g
Gb
H
Hd
Hf
h
Ho
Htc
Ib
Id
Io
Ipump
Isc
k
K1
K2
k1
k2
kp
kpump
KT
l
L
_
m
mstorage
N
Pcoll
P
Pin
PL
Ploss
Ppipe
Ppump
Po

surface area of the heat exchanger (m2)

aperture area (m2)
area of collector (m2)
outer surface area of pipe (m2)
area of PV panel (m2)
receiver area (m2)
capacity of battery (Ah)
specic heat of the uid (J/kg K)
caloric value of the fuel
concentration ratio
diameter of pipe (m)
depth of discharge
outer diameter (m)
inner diameter (m)
number of no-sunny days (day)
amount of energy required for cooking (kWh/day)
amount of energy to be stored (kWh)
collector efciency factor
heat removal factor
earths gravitational constant (m/s2)
beam or direct irradiation (W/m2)
pressure head (m)
delivery head (m)
friction head (m)
heat transfer coefcient of absorber tube (W/m2 C)
monthly averages of daily extra terrestrial global solar
radiation (Wh/m2 day)
solar insolation at earths surface (Wh/m2 day)
beam radiation (W/m2)
diffused radiation (W/m2)
extra-terrestrial beam irradiance (W/m2)
electric current drawn by pump (A)
solar constant (W/m2)
thermal conductivity (W/m2 C)
fraction of daily load required for night cooking
fraction of daily load required during no-sunny days
thermal conductivity of pipe (W/m2 C)
thermal conductivity of thermal insulation (W/m2 C)
absolute roughness of pipe material (m)
pump constant (m2/kg2)
clearness index
length of pipe (m)
length of the collector (m)
mass ow rate (kg/s)
mass of uid in storage tank (kg)
day of the year
collected power (W)
power ow from uid to load (W)
power available at input of the collector (W)
power loss to ambient from receiver (W)
power loss to ambient from pipe (W)
hydraulic pressure drop across pipe (N/m2)
power required by pump (W)
power required to circulate uid (W)

temperature of the collector and outlet uid are higher resulting in

higher heat loss to ambient. Increasing the ow rate increases
the energy required for circulating the uid, even though the
collected heat energy improves. For the given solar insolation
and other external factors, there exists an optimal ow rate.
Hence there is a need for variation in the ow rate dynamically
in order to optimize the energy absorbed from the collector.

Powerpump power required by pump (W)

Pr
power received at the receiver (W)
useful power (W)
Pu
P0u
useful power per unit length (W/m)
Q
maximum ow rate (m3/s)
q_
ow rate (m3/s)
ow rate on collector side (m3/s)
q_ 1
q_ 2
ow rate on load side (m3/s)
Rb
tilt factor for beam radiation
Re
Reynold number
Rd
tilt factor for diffused radiation
t
thickness of insulation (m)
Tamb
ambient temperature (K)
Tf
temperature of uid (K)
temperature of the inlet uid (K)
T
Tfo
temperature of the outlet uid (K)
Thin
temperature of the uid inlet to heat exchanger (K)
temperature of the uid outlet to heat exchanger (K)
Thout
Tmax
maximum temperature of uid in tank (K)
Tmin
minimum temperature of uid in tank (K)
Tpipe
temperature of pipe (K)
temperature of the receiver (K)
Tr
Tsin
temperature of the uid inlet to storage tank (K)
Tsout
temperature of the uid outlet to storage tank (K)
u
velocity of uid (m/s)
UL
overall heat loss coefcient (W/m2 C)
Um
overall thermal heat conductivity of heat exchanger (W/
m2 C)
V
battery voltage (V)
Vf
average fuel consumption per day
Vpump
voltage applied to pump (V)
Vstorage volume of uid in storage tank (m3)
W
width of the collector (m)
Wh1
energy required from PV during daytime (Wh)
Wh2
energy required from PV during night (Wh)
Whbattery total energy required to store in battery (Wh)
Whtotal total energy required from PV (Wh)
d
declination angle ()
DTm
mean temperature difference between load and uid (K)
o
emissivity of pipe surface
/
latitude angle ()
g1
collector efciency
gB
overall battery efciency
gbattery battery efciency
gc
collector efciency
go
optical efciency
gpump
efciency of pump
gPV
efciency of PV panel
gstorage efciency of storage system
k
Darcy friction factor
m
kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
q
density of uid (kg/m3)
r
StefanBoltzmann constant (W/m2 K4)
xs
hour angle at sunrise/sunset ()

This has lead to concept of maximum power point tracking

(MPPT).
Section 2 describes the proposed cooking system and its operation. Optimization of energy by MPPT and selection of pipe diameter are described in Section 3. Design of such a cooking system
is explained in Section 4. Results are presented in Section 5 and nally concluded in Section 6.

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U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

2. Hybrid solar cooking

2.1. System description
The block diagram of the proposed cooking system is as shown
in Fig. 1. The solar thermal collector is in general placed at a high
location preferably on the roof top. A cylindrical (linear) parabolic
collector, a paraboloid or a concentrating collector is used to collect
solar energy and increase the temperature of the uid. The heat exchanger is placed in the kitchen where the cooking is done. It
transfers heat from the circulating uid to the cooking load. All
other components are placed at intermediate levels according to
the building requirements. Pump-I is used to vary the ow rate
of the uid through the solar thermal collector. The energy extracted from the sun is stored in the buffer tank. The size of this
tank is decided by the amount of energy that needs to be stored
for late night or early morning cooking and amount of energy that
needs to be saved from the other energy sources of the hybrid system. Whenever food has to be cooked, the stored energy is transferred to the load through the heat exchanger using pump-II,
which varies the ow rate of the uid through the heat exchanger.
The auxiliary source of energy like LPG or electrical energy is used
for supplementing the stored solar energy and it as well reduces
the time required for cooking as compared to previously proposed
cooking systems like box-type cooker. Energy required from the
auxiliary source is to be optimized for the given system, availability of solar insolation at the location and the load prole.
2.2. System operation
The major goal of the proposed system is to transfer heat from
the solar collector to the load. There are two levels of heat transfer
with intermediate energy storage in a buffer tank. The heat is rst
transferred from the solar collector to the storage tank. The pump-I
controls the uid ow rate q_ 1 to control the heat transfer from the
collector to tank. Power from the auxiliary source, like LPG or electrical heater is controlled according to the cooking load requirement and availability of the stored energy and solar energy.
Energy taken from this source has to be minimized so as to optimize the savings of LPG.
3. Energy optimization

of a receiver, where the sunlight is absorbed and converted to

required form of energy and a concentrator, which is an optical
system to concentrate direct radiation onto the receiver. Concentration ratio CR is dened as the ratio of the area of aperture Aa
to the area of the receiver Ar.

CR

For applications which require temperature above 100 C, concentrating collectors are used. A concentrating collector comprises

Temperature ranging from 100 C up to 2000 C can be obtained

by increasing the concentration ratio. Method to concentrate sun
beam can be either by refraction as in case of fresnel lens or by
reection. Reection type of concentrating collectors are at plate
collector with plane mirror reectors, linear (cylindrical) parabolic
collector, compound parabolic collector, paraboloid collector etc.
Total power available at a concentrating collector is given by Eq.
(2), where Gb is the beam or direct irradiance in W/m2.

Pin Gb Aa

Only part of the power which is falling on the reector, is concentrated onto the receiver depending on the optical efciency go
given by (3). This efciency depends on many factors like accuracy
of tracking mechanism, material and shape of the reector [18]. Pr
represents the amount of power available at the receiver.

Pr Gb go Aa go Pin

Under steady state conditions, useful power Pu, obtained at the

receiver can be expressed as in Eq. (4). PL is the amount of power
lost from the receiver to atmosphere through convection and radiation, where UL is solar collector heat loss coefcient in W/m2 C
and Tr is the temperature of the receiver in K.

Pu Pr  PL Gb go Aa  U L T r  T amb Ar

The useful energy gain per unit length of the receiver can be expressed as,

P0u

Pu Gb go Aa U L T r  T amb Ar


L
L
L

This useful power per unit length can be obtained in terms of

uid temperature as given in Eq. (6).

P0u

3.1. Solar heating

Aa
Ar



F 0 Aa
U L T r  T amb
Gb g o 
CR
L

where F0 is called as collector efciency factor. For collector having

0
circular cross section with outer and inner diameter as Do and Di, F
is given by (7) [19].

Fig. 1. Block diagram of the hybrid solar cooking system.

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U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

UL

1
1
UL

hDDo i D2ko ln
fi

 i

0.45

Do
Di

where k is absorber thermal conductivity in W/m C and h is heat

transfer coefcient inside absorbed tube in W/m2 C. Useful power
gained at the collector can be expressed in terms of inlet uid temperature T and ambient temperature as in Eq. (8), where FR is the
heat removal factor. FR is a function of collector efciency, specic
heat of uid, ow rate, dimension of collector, heat loss coefcient
UL etc. Eq. (8) is the equivalent of the HottelWhillerBliss equation
for liquid at-plate collector [19,20].

Pu F R Gb go Aa  U L T fi  T amb Ar 

Collector efficiency per unit

F0

0.4
100C

0.35

gc

U L T fi  T amb
Pu Pr  PL

F R go 
Pin
Pin
Gb  CR

0.25

8
0

Fig. 2. Effect of mass ow rate on collector efciency.

_ p T fo  T fi
mC
Ib Rb Id Rd WL

11

Inlet temperature to the collector T is varied by keeping the mass

ow rate constant. For lower inlet temperature, receiver temperature is less. Since heat loss PL is minimum, collector efciency is
maximum. On the other hand, as inlet temperature is increased, receiver temperature is more resulting in lower collector efciency.
For linear parabolic collector, inlet temperature is set at three different values (50 C, 100 C and 150 C) and collector efciency is calculated for varied range of mass ow rate as shown in Fig. 2.

0.46
0.44

Collector efficiency per unit

10

From Eq. (9), it is observed that the collector efciency gc depends mainly on two factors Pr and PL. Power reected from the
concentrator can be optimized by improving the optical efciency
go. This can be achieved by using reector having better reectivity
and shape. Once the reector is fabricated, efciency is xed and
can not be improved further.
The other part of the collector efciency is PL, which accounts
for radiative and convective heat loss from the receiver to atmosphere. This is a function of the receiver temperature. Higher the
temperature, more is the heat loss. In order to increase the collector efciency, the temperature of the receiver has to be kept as
close as possible to the ambient temperature in order to reduce
heat loss to ambient according to Eq. (5).
For a given constant inlet temperature of uid and constant solar irradiance, as ow rate increases, the collector efciency increases as the collector outlet temperature comes down. Since
heat loss from collector to atmosphere is proportional to receiver
temperature, efciency of collector is lesser at smaller uid ow
rates. At very large ow rates, outlet temperature tends to inlet
temperature according to Eq. (10), as input power is considered
to remain same.
Performance of linear parabolic collector is found according to
the above equations. A MATLAB program is written which calculates steady state useful collected power and collector efciency
analytically. Instantaneous collector efciency is calculated for an
inlet uid temperature of 150 C as in Eq. (11) where Ib and Id
are beam and diffused radiation, W is the width of the collector,
_ is the mass ow rate, Cp is the speL is the length of the collector, m
cic heat of the uid, T and Tfo are the inlet and outlet temperature
of the uid. Tilt factor for beam and diffused radiation are represented by Rb and Rd respectively.

gc

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Mass flow rate in kg/s

Applying rst principle of thermodynamics to the solar collector

for open systems, useful power gain can also be written as rate of
specic heat gained by the uid.

_ p DT f
Pu mC

150C

0.3

Dividing the above equation by Pin, steady state collector efciency

can be obtained as,

50C

0.42
0.4
0.38
0.36
0.34
0.32
0.3
300

320

340

360

380

400

420

Collector Inlet Temperature in K

Fig. 3. Effect of inlet temperature on collector efciency.

Collector efciency is calculated for different inlet temperature by

keeping mass ow rate at a xed value. It can be observed from
Fig. 3 that the collector efciency increases as inlet temperature is
decreased toward ambient.
3.2. Pumping power
Power necessary for driving pump depends on type of the pump
that is being used for circulating uid. Useful power Po that is being
added to the uid ow is given by,

Po qgHq_

12
3

where q is the uid density in kg/m , g is the acceleration due to

earths gravity, H is the head added to the ow in m and q_ is the ow
rate in m3/s. Input power necessary to drive the pump to deliver
pressure of DP is much more than the output power given by Eq.
(13), where the efciency of the pump gpump is being considered.

Ppump

DP  q_

gpump

13

For a centrifugal pump, input power is proportional to ow rate given by Eq. (14). kpump is a pump constant depending on the type and
design of the pump. As the mass ow rate increases, power required
to circulate uid through the collector increases drastically.

_3
Ppump kpump m

14

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U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

45

In an active mass transport solar system, additional energy is

spent on the supply-side pump to drive uid through the collector
in order to extract energy from the sun. Hence efciency of the system containing solar collector and pump can be expressed as given
in Eq. (15). Ppump can be expressed in terms of Pu and equation can
be written, where Hf represents the friction head in the collector
side loop.

Effectiv e Collected Power

Input Solar Power
Pu  P pump

Pin
"
#
gHf
Pu

1
Pin
C p DT f gpump

Effectiv e Collector Efficiency

15

Initially, as the ow rate increases, power extracted from the

collector increases. After reaching some ow rate, power required
to pump the uid increases more drastically as compared to increase in collector power. Effective collector efciency is calculated
from this collector power as given in Eq. (15). For linear parabolic
collector, the effective collector efciency is analyzed for a constant inlet temperature. Efciency is plotted against mass ow rate
for different inlet temperatures as shown in Fig. 4.
At lower ow rates, increase in collector efciency is more compared to increase in power required to pump the uid. Effective
collector efciency increases at lower ow rates. Above some particular ow rate, pumping power increases and there is a ow rate
at which power extracted from solar collector is maximum. In order to maximize the collector efciency, one has to operate at this
peak point.

Effective Collector Efficiency in %

3.3. Effective collector efciency

40

35

30

100%

25
40%

20
0

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08

Effective Collector Efficiency in %

Performance analysis is carried out for different solar insolation

level at constant ambient air temperature and inlet thermo-convector uid temperature. From Fig. 5, it can be observed that for
100% solar insolation, optimal mass ow rate is around 0.04
0.05 kg/s. As solar insolation is reduced, the optimal ow rate shifts
towards lower value. This shows that the optimal ow rate is not
xed for a given system. It is a function of location and solar insolation at that particular instant. Hence one has to vary the ow rate
accordingly in order to extract optimal energy from sun. This leads
to the concept of maximum power point tracking also known as
MPPT.

50
40
30
20
10

50C

0
150C

10
20
0

100C

0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2

Mass flow rate in kg/s

Fig. 4. Effective collector efciency for different inlet temperatures.

0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18

Mass flow rate in kg/s

Fig. 5. Effective collector efciency for different insolations.

MPPT control block diagram is shown in Fig. 6. Inlet temperature Tsin and outlet temperature Tsout from the storage tank are
sensed using temperature sensors. Power collected from the solar
collector is calculated according to the equation given by (16),
_ is sensed using a ow meter. Effective
where the mass ow rate m
collector power which is calculated from Pcoll and Ppump, is fed to
the MPPT optimizing algorithm. This gives duty ratio as output,
which in turn controls the voltage level of the supply given to
the pump through the power converter as shown in Fig. 6.

_ p T sin  T sout
Pcoll mC
3.4. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT)

0.1

60%

80%

16

MPPT algorithm can be grouped into two major types, namely

direct and indirect methods [21]. Indirect methods track the peak
power from the measures of the system like temperature, irradiance or using empirical data or lookup table, by mathematical
expressions through numerical approximations. For this, characteristic of the system has to be known before hand and it is specic
only to that system. Hence, they do not track maximum power for
any given external conditions exactly.
On the other hand, direct method calculates the actual power
absorbed from the sun and tries to maximize it. These type of algorithms are suitable for any irradiance and temperature. Most commonly used MPPT algorithm is perturbation and observation
method [22]. This is an iterative method of obtaining MPP. This
measures the solar collector characteristics and then perturbs the
operative point to know the direction of change in power. Maximum point is reached when change in power collected is zero
for a small change in the ow rate. Amount of the perturbation given is calculated according to the slope of the present operating
point. This method has advantage over other methods as it can
be applied to any system without prior knowledge about its actual
characteristic.
Flow chart for implementing MPPT is as shown in Fig. 7. Power
obtained from the collector and power supplied to the pump are
calculated. Rate of change in effective collector power is estimated.
Accordingly the value of duty ratio is calculated. Duty ratio is
either increased or decreased depending on the present operating
point. If the operating point is on the left side of the inverted U
curve (Fig. 5), then change in duty ratio and change in power are
of same sign. Hence duty ratio is increased such that operating
point moves toward optimal value. On the other hand, change in
duty ratio and power is in opposite direction when operating right
side of optimal ow rate. The gain value K is decided according to

U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

247

Fig. 6. Control block diagram for MPPT.

The characteristic equation for a heat exchanger is given by Eq.

(17). UmA gives the mean overall thermal conductivity between the
heat exchanger and the load. This is decided by the dimension,
shape of the heat exchanger and conductivity of the material used.

Pfl U m ADT m

17

where P is the heat ow from uid to load, Um is the mean overall

heat transfer coefcient, A is the total surface area of the load heat
exchanger and Tm is the mean temperature difference between uid
and load. It is observed from Eq. (17) that DTm should be maximized
to increase the heat transfer rate. For a given temperature difference
DTm, energy ow can be increased by maximizing the conductive
barrier between the hot uid and the cooking load. Design should
be done such that the energy transferred to the load should be maximum with minimal pressure drop across it. DTm can be maximized
by taking the uid from top of the storage tank which has the highest temperature due to density stratication. Once the heat energy
is transferred to the load, the lower temperature uid is fed back to
the buffer tank.
The above equation can also be written as,

_ p T hin  T hout
Pfl mC

Fig. 7. Flowchart for MPPT algorithm.

the system dynamics like time constant of the system and variation in solar insolation.

18

_ is the mass ow rate through the heat exchanger, Cp is the

where m
specic heat of the uid, Thin and Thout are the temperatures of uid
entering and leaving the heat exchanger respectively. Power trans_
ferred to the load can be controlled by varying the mass ow rate m.
Pump-II is supplied by a variable power supply unit by which the
ow rate can be controlled. When power supplied from the storage
tank is not sufcient, the auxiliary source of energy like LPG or electrical energy is used.
LPG and solar energy are integrated in such a way that, both of
them heat up only the load and are mutually exclusive. During the
condition when both energy sources are supplying heat, the temperature of the heat-transfer uid is higher than load. In such a
case the entropy ow is to the load (sink). If the temperature of
heat-transfer uid is lower (during night or no-sun conditions),
the piping structure is such that natural thermosyphon of the thermic uid from the load side to buffer tank does not exist. Further
isolation is provided by two insulating isolation valves that isolate
the thermic uid at the load exchanger and the buffer tank.

3.5. Load-side optimization

3.6. Selection of pipe diameter
The other part of the system transfers heat energy from the buffer tank to the load which is placed in the kitchen. The buffer tank
is used to store the heat energy in the form of sensible heat, which
is used for cooking. With this storage unit, cooking can be carried
out even when energy from sun is not available. The heat energy
is transferred to the load by circulating the hot uid stored in the
buffer tank through a heat exchanger. The pump controls the ow
rate in this loop thereby controlling the rate of heat transferred to
the load.

Performance of the solar system is dependent on the pipe diameter used for circulation of the uid. There are two contradictory
effects, which are dependent on diameter of the pipe. One of them
is the heat loss to ambient, which varies directly with variation in
diameter. Another effect is the pumping power required to circulate the uid, which increases as diameter is decreased. These
two contradicting effects lead to the existence of an optimal pipe
diameter for a given system.

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U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

450

3.6.1. Pressure drop

Consider a pipe of length L having a constant diameter D. Pressure drop across this pipe is given by the DarcyWeisbach formula
[23] as in equation.

l qu2
k
D 2

19

where u is the velocity of the uid in m/s and k is a dimensionless

coefcient called the Darcy friction factor or coefcient of line
hydraulic resistance, which can be found from a Moody diagram
[23]. In case of laminar ow of uids, the Darcy factor is calculated
using Stokes formula [23] given by,

350

Power in W

Ppipe

400

300

200

20

Du

0
0.004

l
2

_
64mlm
2 p D4

22

In most of the solar applications, ow rate is very small and

Reynolds number Re is less than 2000. Hence the ow is considered
as laminar. If ow is turbulent, the friction factor k is calculated
according to a t given by Colebrook [24],



1
2:51 0:269kp
p 2log
p
D
k
Re k

23

where kp is the absolute roughness of the pipe material used. For

both laminar and turbulent ow, as the diameter of the pipe decreases, the pressure drop increases. This increases the burden on
the pump which is circulating the uid. For a given ow rate, higher
power is necessary to pump the uid through a smaller diameter
pipe.
3.6.2. Heat loss
Heat energy is transferred from collector to storage tank and
from storage tank to heat exchanger by circulating heat transfer
uid through the pipe. Since temperature of the uid is much higher than ambient temperature, the uid looses heat energy to ambient. Consider a pipe of length l carrying uid having temperature Tf.
Heat is lost from uid by conduction through the pipe wall given
by (24), where inner and outer diameter of the pipe are represented as Di and Do and k1 is the conductivity of the pipe material
[25].

2pk1 l
  T f  T pipe

ln

Do
Di

24

This heat energy raises the temperature of the pipe. Heat from
pipe is lost to ambient through the insulation by conduction and
radiation given by Cengel [25],

Ploss

ln

0.006



2p k l
h 2 i T pipe  T amb Ao ro T 4pipe  T 4amb
Do 2t
Do

25

where Ao is the outer surface area of the pipe, k2 is the conductivity

of the insulation material, t is the thickness of the insulation, r is
the StefanBoltzmann constant and o is the emissivity of the outer
surface.
Under steady state, all the temperatures reach an equilibrium
value. Under this condition heat transferred from uid to pipe

0.008

0.01

0.012

0.014

0.016

0.018

Diameter in m

21

where m is the kinematic viscosity of the uid. By substituting Eqs.

(20) and (21) in Eq. (19), the pressure drop along a pipe is obtained
as,

Ppipe 32mq

Ppump

50

where Re is the Reynold Number, given by

Ploss

Ploss

150
100

64
Re

Re

Ploss+Ppump

250

Fig. 8. Effect of diameter on the performance.

becomes equal to heat transferred from pipe to ambient. For a

given value of uid and ambient temperatures and pipe temperature Tpipe, the power loss Ploss can be calculated by solving the
non-linear Eqs. (24) and (25). It is observed from the above equations that the heat loss to ambient is directly proportional to the
surface area of the pipe. Hence heat energy lost is higher if larger
diameter pipes are used.
Discussions in Sections 3.6.1 and 3.6.2 show that Ppump and Ploss
change inversely as the pipe diameter is varied. Hence there exists
an optimal pipe diameter for which Ppump + Ploss is minimal. For a
given solar system, diameter of the pipe is selected in order to minimize the sum of these two power losses. Optimal diameter of the
pipe is obtained by solving the Eq. (26).

@Ppump
@Ploss

@D
@D

26

Ppump and Ploss are calculated for a typical set of specications. Variation in these powers are plotted with change in diameter of the
pipe. Fig. 8 shows that as the diameter increases, Ploss increases
whereas Ppump decreases. From the plot of Ploss + Ppump, it is observed
that there exists an optimal diameter at 8.26 mm for which the total
power loss is minimum.
4. Design of solar cooking system
In a practical cooking system, there are different components
whose design issues are to be addressed considering the worst case
conditions for a given location and cooking load.
4.1. Estimation of solar collector size
This mainly depends on the availability of solar energy at an
user dened location and the amount of energy required for cooking. The monthly averages of daily extra terrestrial global solar
radiation for a horizontal surface Ho at any location can be calculated by Eq. (27).

Ho

24

Io sin/sindxs cos/cosdsinxs  Wh=m2 day

27

where
Io = Extra-terrestrial beam normal irradiance on a day in W/m2




= Isc 1 0:033cos 360N

365
Isc = Solar constant = 1367 W/m2

249

U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

N = Day of the year (N = 1 on January 1st and N = 365 on December 31st)

/ = Latitude of the location in degrees
h
i
d = Declination angle in degrees = 23:45sin 360N80
365
1

xs = Hour angle at sunrise/sunset = cos (tan(/)tan(d))

28

where Htc represents the solar insolation at the earths surface on a

horizontal plate at any location on any given day. The monthly average daily insolation is calculated for all the months over a year considering a typical day of each month. From these values, the lowest
value of the solar insolation is considered for the design of solar
thermal and photo-voltaic collectors.
According to the type and the amount of cooking fuel used per
day, the average energy requirement can be estimated according to
Eq. (29). The Average fuel consumption for cooking per day, Vf is
multiplied by the caloric value Cpf of that fuel to obtain the
amount of energy required in kWh/day.

Ereq1

V fi C pfi 8 i

29

Considering g1 as the efciency of the collector that is being

used, area of the collector in m2 can be calculated as in Eq. (30).

Acoll

Ereq1

30

g1 Htc

where Htc is as given in Eq. (28).

In the proposed system, photo-voltaic (PV) panels are used to
supply electrical energy requirement by pumps, linear actuator,
sensing instruments like temperature sensor and ow meter
[26]. Let Wh1 be the total energy required during daytime per
day represented in kWh. This includes energy required by linear
actuator, pump-I, pump-II and other monitoring and controlling
instruments. Let Wh2 be the total energy required during nighttime. This involves supply of power to mainly load-side pump
(pump-II), monitoring and control on load-side. Total energy required to be supplied from the PV panel is given by,

Whtotal Wh1

Wh2

gB

gB

gB

gB

31

Whtotal
Htc  gPV

32

4.2. Sizing of the storage tank

Heat storage tank stores solar energy in the form of heat by raising the temperature of the uid. The amount of energy to be stored
depends on the amount of night cooking load and the number of
no-sunny days given by Eq. (33).

Estorage K 1 Ereq1 K 2 Ereq1  Dno-sun 

33

where K1 is the fraction of daily load required for night cooking and
K2 is the fraction of cooking load that needs to be considered for

34

where mstorage is the mass of uid in the storage tank, Vstorage is the
volume of the tank, gstorage is the efciency of storing and retrieving
the energy from the tank. Tmax and Tmin are the maximum and minimum temperature of the uid in the tank.
4.3. Sizing of battery
Battery is used to meet the energy requirement from the electrical components during the night time. Total energy that needs to
be stored in the battery Whbattery is calculated by adding individual
Wh required during night time and no-sunny day.

Whbattery
C battery

Wh
35

Whbattery
V  DOD  gbattery

where Cbattery is the capacity of the battery in Ah, DOD is depth of

discharge, V is the battery voltage and gbattery denotes the efciency
of the battery.
4.4. Sizing of pumps
Two pumps are used in the proposed system, one to circulate
the uid through the solar thermal collector and another through
the heat exchanger. During steady ow condition in a closed circuit, pump has to supply only friction head. In order to start the
ow, pump has to circulate the uid against corresponding
delivery head. Hence rating of the pump depends on the static
head to which the uid has to be pumped and the ow rate.
Pressure head and power rating of the pumps can be calculated
by Eq. (36).

Powerpumpi

where gB is the overall battery efciency and Dno-sun is the number

of no-sunny days. Knowing insolation Htc as calculated in Eq. (28),
the area of PV needed to fulll the electrical loads is obtained as given in Eq. (32), where gPV is the efciency of the PV panel.

APV

V storage

Estorage
C p T max  T min gstorage
mstorage

Ppumpi qgHdi inPa

Wh1 Wh2  Dno-sun



Dno-sun
Wh2
Wh1 1
1 Dno-sun

Estorage mstorage C p T max  T min gstorage

mstorage

A stochastic measure of atmospheric effects is called as clearness index KT, which is a periodic function of time of year. The global solar insolation with atmospheric effects is obtained as,

Htc K T Ho

sizing of tank during no-sunny days. From Eq. (33), the size of the
storage tank can be calculated as,

Ppumpi Q i

gpump

9
=
inW ;

For i 1; 2:

36

where Ppumpi is the pressure head, Powerpumpi is the power rating of

the pump, Hdi is the delivery head in m, gpump is the efciency of the
pump and Qi is the maximum volume ow rate in m3/s.
4.5. Heat exchanger
In the proposed system, the heat exchanger is used to transfer
heat from the uid at higher temperature to the food which is
being cooked. Efciency of heat transfer has to be maximum and
pressure drop across the exchanger has to be minimized. Size of
the heat exchanger has to be exible with the dimension of the
cooking vessel that is being used.
4.6. Monitoring and control system
Parameters like temperature and ow rate are monitored placing temperature sensors at different points and ow meter on both
the collector side and load side. Control circuits are designed to
track the sun, maximum power point etc.

250

U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

5. Experimental results
Fig. 9 shows the block diagram of the experimental setup for solar cooking system. Paraboloid dish concentrator is used to focus
sun rays onto the receiver. Aluminium sheets are used as reecting
material. To improve optical efciency, surface of the reector is
anodized. A linear actuator is xed to the paraboloid with a lever
system in such a way that when actuator moves to and fro, the
paraboloid is rotated in eastwest direction. Using an accelerometer sensor that is xed on the paraboloid, the tilt angle is sensed.
Early morning, the concentrator is xed toward sun manually.
The sensor considers this as the reference angle and tracks at a
constant rate of 15 angle per hour.
A coil made of copper tube is placed at the focus of the parabola in order to receive the heat. Servo-therm oil is circulated
through the collector to absorb heat energy. Stainless steel pipes
with glass wool insulation over that is used for circulation of the
oil from the collector to the tank. Thermocouples are placed to
measure temperature of oil entering and leaving the receiver. A
rotary pump is used to circulate oil through the receiver and
put back into the heat storage tank. The pumps are driven by permanent magnet DC (PMDC) motors, which are controlled by variable voltage power supplies. The heat storage tank is made of
stainless steel material with good thermal insulation around that
for better retention of heat. The ow rate of the uid is measured
using a ow meter.
On the load-side, hot oil from top of the heat storage tank is taken to the kitchen through thermally insulated stainless steel tube.
Heat is transferred from oil at higher temperature to cooking load
using a heat exchanger. Helical shaped coil of copper is wound
around the cooking vessel with thermal insulation to constrain
the heat within the heat exchanger. Oil leaving the heat exchanger
is pumped back from the kitchen to the buffer tank using another
similar pump-motor drive. The mass ow rate on the load-side is
measured using another ow meter. Thermocouples (TC) are
placed at different places as shown in gure to measure the temperatures at various points of the system.
In order to show the maximum power point, an electrical heater
is used in place of solar thermal collector to achieve control over
input power. For the same external conditions like temperature
of storage tank and input power, experiment is repeated for different ow rate. Collected power and power supplied to the pump are
calculated. Effective collector power is plotted against ow rate as

Fig. 10. Experimental result showing MPP.

shown in Fig. 10. This clearly shows the optimal ow rate at which
the collected power is maximum.

6. Conclusion
This paper proposes the hybrid solar cooking system, wherein
the solar energy is transferred to the kitchen and supplements
the conventional LPG source. Cooking can be carried out at any
time of the day with time taken being comparable to conventional
systems. Energy collected from the solar thermal collector is optimized by dynamically varying the ow rate using maximum power
point tracking technique. Effect of variation in diameter of the pipe
is analyzed and method to select optimal diameter is proposed in
order to maximize the efciency of the system. Design and sizing
of different components of the system are described with equations. Simulation and experimental results are presented showing
the MPP.

Fig. 9. Block diagram of the experimental setup.

U.R. Prasanna, L. Umanand / Applied Energy 88 (2011) 242251

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