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Last edited: 15 December 2016
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1.2m (47") diameter parabolic TinyTech Plants solar cooker
TinyTech Plants a manufacturer of a wide range of renewable energy devices including domestic and community solar cookers. As of 2016, they have designed a completely new lightweight parabolic domestic solar cooker of 1.2 mt (3.9 ft) diameter, and have begun manufacturing it for the world market. Its unique features are listed below.
TinyTech Plants 1.2mt parabolic solar cooker
- Entire cooker is of folding design which is our unique facility making transport very easy and cheap. It is shipped in a corrugated paper box packing size 36'' x 12'' x 3'' only. Weight of the cooker is only 14 kg(31 lbs).
- You can assemble the entire cooker in 15 minutes. Tying the reflector strips will take an additional 40 minutes.
- Reflector frame has an attractive paraboloid shape with a short focal length. It is made of 5 circles of bright bars cut in to segments and connected by bolts with 6 parabolic strips of 16 mmx 3 mm.
- Base frame and revolving stand is made from box pipe of 20 mm x 20 mm.
- Entire cooker is powder-coated in attractive colours.
- A video CD is provided with every cooker as an aid for assembling.
- Reflector sheets are anodized aluminium. Cooking results are given below with actual experiments.
- December 2016: TinyTech Founder and Director, Veljibhai Desai, writes: I have also developed unique community parabolic solar cookers for 5 sq mt, 10 sq mt, 30 sq mt, etc which are highly suitable for refugee camps, mid-day meals, schools, hostels, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, offices, small factories, clubs, associations, communities, small home scale cooking related business etc. Their unique features are listed below:
Large Parabolic Solar Baskets for community cooking
Solar Basket 5sq. mt aperture area, 2.54 mt (8.3 ft) diameter
This basket is the smallest of our solar baskets. It does not require any foundation. Fabricated channel and square plate foundation base frame is provided, which can be placed anywhere and the basket can be erected in only a few hours. It gives 2 to 2.5 KW of heat power. Temperature at focal point reaches up to 250° C(482F). This basket can cook for a maximum of 60 people in one hour.
The design of the basket is able to be completely folded for easy transport. Entire paraboloid is made of horizontal circles of round rods and vertical parabolic mild steel strips. Basket paraboloid is in loose parts in 6 segments, and the revolving stand, foundation stand, vessel stand etc will go into one box or bundle, which packs to less than one cu mt. Total net weight is 77kg(170lbs). Manufacturing of this basket is in place and can be shipped within 24 hours of ordering.
Solar Basket 10 sq mt aperture area, 3.6 mt (11.8 ft) dia.
The 10 sq. mt. Solar Basket
This basket has been extensively tested scientifically for cooking rice, as well as for water heating for scientific calculation of KW output. The basket does not require any foundation. A fabricated channel and square plate foundation base frame is provided, which can be placed anywhere, and the basket can be erected in only a few hours. From extensive experimentation we concluded that it is able to provide 4.5 to 5 KW of heating power. Temperature at focal point reaches up to 490 degree C(914F). This basket can cook for 125 people in one hour. So for 100 to 500 people, this basket will be quite suitable with 1 to 4 baskets.
The design of the basket is able to be completely folded for easy transport. Entire paraboloid, revolving stand, foundation stand, vessel stand etc will go into one box of 67" x 34" x 20" which becomes less than one cu mt. Total net weight is 220kg(484lbs). Manufacturing of this basket is in place and can be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. Video links of the 10 sq mt solar basket are in two parts.
Solar Basket 30 sq mt aperture area, 6.2 mt (20.3 ft) dia.
As the aperture area is three times larger than the 10 sq mt basket, this basket will give heat power of 12 to 15 KW. This will be suitable for steam generation, air heating and thermic oil heating for industrial heat or power generation. Three such baskets combined together will generate about 40 KW heat power. This basket frame is also collapsable, and can be erected at the site in only in one day without the need for a foundation. When cooking of 300 to 400 people are required, only one such basket will be needed. With three baskets of 30 sq mt, food can be cooked for 1000 people in one hour. With the use of thermic oil or steam, cooking can be done inside the kitchen.
Solar Basket 60 sq mt aperture area, 8.8 mt (28.9 ft)dia.
As the aperture area is double that of the 30 sq mt basket, this basket will give heat power of 25 to 30 KW. This will be suitable for steam generation, air heating and thermic oil heating for industrial heat or power generation. This basket wis capable of running a small steam engine for water pumping, processing of farm products, and for running small industry such as cotton spinning or weaving of cloth. This basket frame will also be folding and can be erected at site only in one day without any foundation. Where cooking of 600 to 800 people are required, only one such basket will be ideally suitable. With 3 baskets of 60 sq mt, food can be cooked for 2000 people in one hour. With the use of thermic oil or steam, cooking can be done inside the kitchen.
Solar Basket 120 sq mt aperture area, 12.4 mt (40.7 ft)dia.
This is the biggest basket designed by Veljibhai Desai. They have already manufactured one 113 sq mt basket. On the basis of this experience, this new basket is almost perfect and optimumal in design, shape, weight etc. As far as he knows, this is the biggest parabolic solar basket developed for use in India. It will require RCC foundations, and also a RCC column to support the entire basket. This basket will be ideally suitable for cooking of 1000 to 1200 people and with the combination of many such baskets, any number of people can be served. If food is required for 20,000 people everyday, then 15 to 16 baskets should be installed. Design is modular. All the components will be manufactured in our factory and will be dispatched to the site in CKD condition and erection will be done at site with permanent welding. Each such basket will give heat power of about 50 to 60 KW. So these baskets will be useful for industrial heating needs, and to some extent, electrical power generation.
Main benefits of Solar Baskets
The main features of TinyTech Solar Baskets is simplicity and low cost. Often, other solar concentrators are costing US$300 per sq mt of reflective surface. We have estimated that our solar baskets will be costing US$100 or less per sq mt of reflector area. Benefits include:
- Main paraboloid basket is completely collapsable. It can be quickly assembled at site into its accurate paraboloid shape by following the video CD.
- Revolving stand and base frame are also collapsable, and can be quickly assembled at the site.
- Foundations in ground are not required for up to the 30 sq mt basket.
- It is not necessary to find out north south direction in our solar basket.
- Solar baskets are not required to be installed on the polar axis. Knowing the latitude of the site location is not necessary.
- Solar baskets do not require any seasonal adjustment.
- In our solar basket, 100% aperture area is utilized all the time.
- The cost of the solar basket is only 30 to 40% of the cost of equivalent solar concentrators.
- Space requirement is only half of other solar concentrators.
- TinyTech Plants Solar Baskets have manual tracking devices. Even an unskilled person's human eye can track and adjust the basket against sun very precisely with the focus indicator installed on the basket. Only one person is necessary to handle manual tracking for five baskets.
On the whole, solar baskets are highly user-friendly, and any layman or illiterate person can operate it with one day of training.
Uses of Solar Baskets
India is consuming over 100 million tons of oil every year for various uses. From this amount, almost 40% is being consumed in the industrial sector alone. Further, 40-50% of this consumption is for heat generation alone, with temperature ranges below 250 C, which comes to around 15 million tons of fuel oil costumed annually. Various applications are listed below:
- Cooking for student hostels, hotels, hospitals, schools, factories, temples, marriages, food caterers and food business, army camps, refugee camps, jails, religious and social organizations etc.
- Many of the world’s most important crops need to be dried to remove moisture as part of the production process. Removing the moisture from crops such a coffee beans, tea leaves, cocoa, oilseeds, nuts, fruit, rice, spices, corn, etc is an essential process that helps transform the raw goods into the final product. For better quality and storage for long period, drying of crops by solar baskets will be essential.
- Mercerizing, drying and finishing in textile industry.
- Drying, dissolving, thickening, leaching and distillation in chemical industry.
- Cooking, drying and canning in food industry.
- Craft pulping, bleaching and drying in pulp and paper industry.
- Drying and cleaning in leather industry.
- Heating and cooling in milk dairy industry.
- Heat treatment process in mechanical components and various such applications in many more industries. The working fluid required for these applications is either pressurized hot water, steam or hot air in temperature range of 60-250 C.
- Solar Baskets should revolutionize industries requiring both heat and power. Ice plants, cold storages, small dairies, and air conditioning can be done through the vapor adsorption process.
- Potential market
- Veljibhai Desai feels there is a potential market for five million solar baskets in India. They are able to supply 5sq mt, 10 sq mt, 30 sq mt solar baskets in one only one week.
- Prices
- 10 sq mt basket cost US$ 2200/- Heat power for 6 hours 28KWH i.e. 23000Kcal.
- 30 sq mt basket cost US$ 6600/- Heat power for 6 hours 84 KWH i.e. 70000Kcal.
- 60 sq mt basket cost US$ 12800/- Heat power for 6 hours 160 KWH i.e. 130000Kcal.
- 120 sq mt basket cost US$ 22000/- Heat power for 6 hours 300 KWH i.e. 250000Kcal.
See also
- Veljibhai Desai
- Domestic Parabolic Solar Cooker
- AGE Solar Cooker
- Community Solar Cooker 3 SQ MT
- Community Solar Cooker 10 SQ MT
- Solar Roasted Peanut Butter Plant
External links
Contact
TinyTech Plants
Tagore Road
Rajkot - 360002
Gujarat
India
Mobile: +91 92 27 60 65 70
Tel: +91 281 243 1086
Fax: +91 281 246 7552
Email: energy@tinytechindia.com
Web: http://www.tinytechindia.com