Abstract
The work presented in this article essentially consists of evaluating the energy and exergy efficiency of two types of parabolic solar cookers. The experiments on both the cookers were performed in summer and winter, both in the climatic conditions in India. The measurements were done by using a microprocessor-based on-line data acquisition system using class I solar pyranometer and Pt. 100 temperature sensors. The energy end exergy efficiencies of both the cookers were experimentally evaluated. The energy output of the community solar cooker varied between 2.73 to 43.3 W and 7.77 W to 33.4 W for the domestic solar cooker. The exergy output for community solar cooker was in the range of 1.92 to 2.58 W, whereas for the domestic solar cooker, it varied from 0.65 to 1.45 W. The energy efficiency of the community solar cooker varied from 8.3% to 10.5% and for the domestic solar cooker, it varied from 7.1% to 14.0%.