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Last edited: 27 September 2024
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 Professor Celestino Ruivo organizes numerous solar cooking and food processing demonstrations and workshops each year. |
Events[]
Featured international events[]
- NEW: 11-22 November 2024 (Baku, Azerbaijan ): COP29 - The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly known as COP29, will be the 29th United Nations Climate Change conference to be held at Baku Stadium. More information...
- 12-14 March 2025 (Bridgetown, Barbados): Sustainable Energy for All Global Forum - Building on Prime Minister Mottley’s Bridgetown Initiative for the reform of development finance, the Forum will address the challenge of how we can mobilize sufficient finance on the right terms to meet global goals, especially for the most underserved communities, countries and regions – such as Small Island Developing States. The event wil be co-hosted by Sustainable Energy for All and the Government of Barbados, led by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. Project site visits will take place Friday, 14 March. More information...
Requests for proposal[]
- The deadline for receipt of abstracts is 15th December 2024 - Advances in Solar Thermal Food Processing (CONSOLFOOD2025) is being planned for the 5th, 6th and 7th of May, 2025 in Marseille, France. The gathering expects to attract, once again, top experts from all over the world to present and discuss topics related to advances in solar food processing and solar cooking. An exhibition of solar cookers will be available for viewing during the conference at the nearby the solar restaurant Le Présage. The solar restaurant, along with the demonstration cookers, will produce a solar lunch. The whole conference program will be delivered in hybrid format, so those who register, but are not present at Marseille, will be able to participate online. Your abstracts should be sent via email to Celestino Ruivo at cruivo@ualg.pt in .doc, .docx, or pdf format. You should limit your abstract to 400 words, and follow these guidelines. All abstracts will be reviewed and assessed by members of the scientific committee. The organizing committee will inform each author whether their submitted abstract has been accepted. The committee encourages all authors to write an optional full length paper for inclusion in our conference proceedings. Successful authors should pre-record their presentations, using Powerpoint, or similar software. They will be invited to submit either a) a short presentation, of about 7 minutes duration, or b) a longer presentation, of about 25 minutes to cruivo@ualg.pt by 30th March 2025. The expected conference fee is 200 euros before 1st April 2025. Interested people facing financial difficulties should contact the organizing committee.
- See also: Global Calendar of Events and past events in Portugal
News[]
- August 2023: Celebration at Lavoura da Bouça: - Close to 70 people participated at the solar cooking celebration held at Lavoura da Bouça, making it an Iberian and international encounter. Solar cooking experts Celestino Ruivo, Juan Bello, José Luís Araújo, Armando Herculano Ferreira, and others were in attendance. Hugo Nascimento was the official photographer. A lovely solar cooked meal was prepared for all to enjoy.
Quite a few solar cookers were put into use preparing the festival meal
Group photo of attendees
the program of the days events- Photo credit: Hugo Nascimento
- April 2021: Tamera, based in Reliquias, addresses global problems with low-tech solutions, which include solar energy storage concepts
- January 2020: The CONSOLFOOD 2020 conference was held in Faro.
Curved inflatable reflectors rotate to focus energy typically on a stationary target. Photo credit: Dave Oxford
- March 2018: Solar powered pizza oven with internal heat storage - At Tamera, a community in southern Portugal, there has been experimentation with large inflatable reflectors. Here, you can see six of them mounted on a frame. The whole device is an offset sun-tracking parabola. The reflector array rotates, and all of the reflected light falls on a stationary target. In this case, the target is a hole about 10 cm (4 in.) in diameter in the side of a very well insulated box. Inside the box there is room for four slabs of local black granite. These can be heated to over 600°C (1,112°F), but this is too hot for cooking, so instead, the team heats them to 400°C (734°F), and then cooks pizzas on them inside the box (takes about a minute) or they remove the slab and cook directly on it until it cools to around 200°C (367°F), after about half an hour, when it is then returned to the oven. The box is so well insulated, that a slab can be heated on one day, and used to cook breakfast on the next. All this gear is a bit cumbersome for a single household, but it shows that heat storage is possible in practice. The offset parabola was originally designed by Jurgen Kleinwachter, and taken up by Scheffler, who popularised it. Jurgen now works as the team mentor at Tamera. He is seen here demonstrating a set of musical pipes that are powered by sunlight.
- January 2016: The CONSOLFOOD 2016 conference took place in Faro. The papers that were presented are now available online.
Technical University Federico Santa Maria students with Celestino Ruivo and Pedro Serrano
- October 2013: Celestino Ruivo, Doctor of the University of Coimbra 's academic and University of Algarve, Portugal, visited the Technical University Federico Santa Maria in Chile, invited by the Academic Department of Architecture, Pedro Serrano. Both belong to international solar cooking organizations. Dr. Ruvio has been developing new lightweight and portable solar cookers, and spent time with students to discuss innovation. Later they traveled to Villaseca to visit Delicias del Sol, the popular local solar restaurant.
- February 2013: Solar cooking and processing workshops in India - Celestino Ruivo, of the Instituto Superior de Engenharia da Universidade do Algarve in Portugal, traveled to India at the end of January to attend the 1st International Solar Food Processing Network workshop at the Muni Seva Ashram in Goraj, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. He brought with him 50 kg. of solar cooking baggage: 8 black pots, 16 glasses of windows cloth washing machines, corrugated sheet metal, reflective foil and tools to make low cost and effective portable funnel cookers. Creatively, Celestino used his suitcase as the mold to construct examples of his solar funnel cooker in concrete. He also gave a lecture about solar cooking and how to construct a funnel cooker at the CT institute in Punjab for more than 300 students, as well teaching solar cooking for ladies in domestic context at Jalandhar. The eight funnel cookers were donated to friends in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Muni Seva Ashram, Vadodara, Jalandhar and New Delhi.
Celestino Ruivo's innovative cement-based solar cooker.
- January 2013: The original funnel solar panel cooker was inspired by the CooKit. This efficient solar panel cooker was developed in 2007 using sheets of polypropylene. Recycled windows of clothes washing machines were used to create the greenhouse effect around the pot. A variation of the cooker made of concrete and common mirrors has been tested since 2009. Some of the main advantages of this solar cooker are: low cost reproduction in every part of the world using local available common materials, intuitive and practical use, water rain resistant and wind resistant and no risk for fire ignition. The useful heating capacity of this model was estimated around a value of 100 W. Read more at Experiences of solar cooking in Portugal during the last six years
Professor Celestino Rodrigues Ruivo
- August 2008: Since becoming “well contaminated with the virus of solar cooking” at the 2006 International Solar Cookers Conference in Spain, professor Celestino Rodrigues Ruivo has become an important advocate for solar cooking in Portugal and beyond. Ruivo credits Pedro Serrano, of Chile’s Red Iberoamericana de Cocinas Solares (RECOSOL), and others for helping him overcome his initial skepticism. Ruivo learned to solar cook using a “CooKit” given to him by Solar Cookers International (SCI). He has since made and used several types of solar cookers, mostly “low cost apparatus using recycled materials.” Over ninety percent of his meals are now cooked with solar energy. Ruivo started promoting solar cookers locally — at his home, in local schools and restaurants, etc. — and worked with local media. Then he broadened his scope to other regions of Portugal, and eventually to Brazil and Spain. He’s even becoming known in Australia, where an interview with Ruivo (taped during a solar cooker workshop he conducted for about 70 Scouts) was broadcast on Australia’s SBS television program “Dateline.” Ruivo conducts numerous promotional activities. He has held several solar cooker conferences at the University of Algarve, with sessions on the evolution of solar cookers in Portugal, solar cooker distribution strategies, and solar cooker construction. He has also assisted with solar picnics and participated in solar cooking contests. According to Serrano, Ruivo has “developed an intensive process to diffuse the technology, [organizing] workshops, symposiums, courses, etc. — more than 20 activities in only one year.” Though Ruivo admits to being somewhat tired, he says he will continue his efforts to “contaminate others with this solar cooking virus.”
- April 21-25, 2008: One class of eighth grade students from D. Paio Peres Correia Basic School, Tavira, Portugal will fly to Porto Novo, Cabo Verde, to facilitate solar cooking construction and use workshops. The workshops will be realized in Porto Novo's Technical School and in Social Centers of porto Novo, as part of a cooperation program, promoted by Centro Ciência Viva de Tavira, and will be part of the training of local students, teachers and social workers, to become solar cooking promoters. Source: Filipe Santos
- June 18, 2007: O Concurso “Sabor Solar”, decorreu dia 18 de Junho com muito sol e boa disposição no Chalé Dr. João Lúcio – Ecoteca de Olhão. Houve 26 participantes que nos surpreenderam pela originalidade dos fornos apresentados e criatividade na confecção das diversas receitas. O Júri atribuiu o primeiro prémio na Categoria A – até 15 anos – a Ana Betriz Ruivo, David Silva e Inês Soveral, que nos apresentaram um delicioso Bacalhau com Batatas à murro, confeccionado numa panela cheia de areia! O grupo da Escola E.B. 2,3 de Quarteira, recebeu uma menção honrosa. Na Categoria B – maiores de 15 anos – o Júri teve mais dificuldade em decidir, pois a diversidades de receitas era grande… O primeiro prémio foi atribuído a Sandro Bruno Giovagnoli, com o prato Couscous à Marinheiro. Foi ainda atribuída uma menção honrosa a Silvério Ventura. Esta foi uma iniciativa da Ecoteca de Olhão, que pretende estimular a utilização de fornos solares e proporcionar a partilha de saberes num ambiente de convívio, contribuindo desta forma para despertar o interesse da população pela Energia Solar. Source: Celestino Ruivo
- March 16-17, 2007: Irá realizar-se um "Piquenique Solar" na Ecoteca de Olhão, Portugal
- February 3, 2007: O Encontro de Cozinhas Solares (III ECOSOL) irá realizar-se na Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Universidade do Algarve Campus da Penha.
- March 2006: Armando Herculano reports that he leads solar cooking demonstrations and workshops for schools, nongovernmental organizations, and local agencies. He recently designed a panel-type solar cooker called Girassol (“sun flower”). Its pentagonal shape eliminates the need to reorient the cooker to track the sun’s movement. With teacher friend António Serafim, Armando Herculano introduced the solar cooker to classes at National University of East Timor. This event was covered in local newspapers (Semanário 57 58; Timor Post) as well as on the 'TIMOR CONTACTO' portuguese international television (RTPi) program . Contact: Armando Herculano
History[]
- Main article: History of solar cooking
Archived articles
Climate and culture[]
- The climate of Portugal - Wikipedia
- Portugal Energy Situation - Energypedia
- Solar cooker dissemination and cultural variables
Resources[]
Possible funding[]
Facebook groups[]
Reports[]
- March 2011: Analysis of the Drying Kinetics of S. Bartolomeu Pears for Different Drying Systems - Electronic Journal of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Project evaluations[]
- January 2020: Lessons Learned from Applied Solar Cooking In Community, Tamera, Portugal - Franziska Klapper, Hannah Larndorfer, Katrin Münch
- Main article: Project evaluations
Conferences[]
Articles in the media[]
- November 2021: Pedagogies of the Sun, Traveling to the South of Portugal to Catch the Solar Cooking Contagion, time spent with Celestino Ruivo - Francisco Laranjo
- January 2017: 'India, Portugal ideal for solar energy use' -The Economic Times
Audio and video[]
- NEW: September 2024: Solar oven designer in Portugal creates a caramelized onion & red pepper quiche
- July 2023: Promoting solar cooking tourism in Portugal
- July 2023:
- March 2018:
- March 2017:
- June 2014: Um hotel de luxo em Vilamoura, no Algarve, decidiu demonstrar as potencialidades da energia solar na área da cozinha. No jardim do hotel, os turistas foram surpreendidos com uma caldeirada de peixe confecionada apenas com recurso à energia solar. Veja o video - TVI 24
- November 2013:
- July 2011:
External links[]
- December 2006: Photos from the ECOSOL II in Portugal now online
Contacts[]
The entities listed below are either based in Portugal, or have initiated solar cooking projects there:
SCI Associates[]
- Main article: Solar Cookers International Association