Quantifying energy savings of thermal solar cookers in U.S. households
Thermal solar cookers have been used in sunny United States (U.S.) locations to cook food to reduce energy consumption, to save money, and to “go off-the-grid.” The 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (2009 RECS) data indicates that cooking represents approximately 7% of the total electrical consumption in U.S. households. A significant portion of that energy can be saved by solar cooking, but to date there has been no published data to substantiate this.
In the last decade, we have witnessed acceptance of more efficient household products. Some of these save very little for each household, but have their greatest impact on the larger utility and community scale. For solar cookers to gain acceptance at these levels; however, there must be a better substantiated understanding of the potential savings achievable from them.
