In this article we will discuss about the need for solar “Ahara” for Villages.
The quality of rural life depends upon the availability of cheap and abundant energy for socio- economic activities. Plenty of sunshine available in the village offers an attractive solution to some of the energy problems. In rural areas, households are the major consumers of energy followed by agriculture and cottage industries. It is mostly met from traditional fuels like wood, dung and agricultural residues. Cooking and domestic heating usually take place on open fire, which has low thermal efficiency of the order of 5 per cent.
Cooking with firewood and cow-dung cakes poses a number of problems for the users and for society as a whole. The serious implications of deforestation and subsequent soil erosion, pollution and lack of recycling of natural fertilisers have a significant effect on the overall productivity of rural areas.
Therefore, it becomes essential to find an alternative source of domestic fuel. Other non-conventional energy sources such as biogas, wind and micro-hydro, would be best used to increase the industrial and agricultural productivity of rural areas, while allowing solar energy to provide the bulk of energy requirements for cooking and domestic heating.
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Efforts to design and introduce solar cookers have for many years concentrated on two main types; the cooker with a plane collector (box type) and cooker with special parabolic mirrors of average precision. The Government of India is trying to introduce box type solar cookers with subsidies but with poor success. This type of cooker has certain technical drawbacks due to very low temperature (less than 90° C) obtained.
The cost of second type of solar cookers is too high to be used economically in rural areas. The main reasons are high cost of parabolic mirrors and complicated tracking system required with these types of cookers.
An “AHARA” is a must for every household in the Indian villages in which a slow fire is maintained for almost the whole day with the help of cow-dung cakes and firewood. This is multi-purpose cooker-cum-heater with low heat flux inputs.
A versatile, multi-purpose, low-cost solar ahara has been developed at Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra, which can be used as small solar water heater, oil heater and ghee boiler in addition to solar cooker for rural delicacies of India such as rice, dais, sarson-ka-sag, palak and other vegetables and cereals requiring moderate cooking temperatures and low heat flux inputs to preserve taste, flavour and nutritional values of food.
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The design of the ahara is based on the use of plane mirrors cut to special shape and size and arranged at suitable angles to approach a paraboloid. The tracking is manually achieved in two axes by the use of simple pipes and joint threads. Only those materials have been used which are easily available in the villages and can be assembled locally without the need of any special skills.
The total cost of the prototype, including materials and manufacturing labour, is Rs. 500 only. The cost can be easily reduced further during commercial production. The marketing price of such as heater will be much less than box type solar cookers patronised by the Government of India. Technically, it is far superior in versatility of applications and a temperature of 125° C is easily obtained for more than four hours on a normal sunny day. The cooking efficiency and cooking time are very favourable as a pressure cooker can also be used with the device. This is not possible in box-type solar cookers.
The solar “ahara” is a light-weight, portable device and can be placed near the south facing wall of the house and tracking can be effected through a window from inside the house. This is a very effective and ideal design for a low-cost solar cooker for adoption in rural and muffasil areas.