Design of a DC Solar Powered Electric Cooker for off-Grid Dwellers. Case study: Nyamata Sector / Bugesera District

Abstract

This thesis aimed to design a solar powered electric Cooker, in response to heavy reliance on traditional biomass cookstoves that is exposing to toxic smoke and environmental degradation from traditional cooking practices. During this study, different literatures were reviewed; data were collected in Nyamata sector with ARC Power mini-grid clients, data collection was to assess the cooking dairies/behaviour that helped to define the cooking load profile of households. Findings have shown that the average time for cooking with AC electric pressure cooker is 53 min for breakfast, 1h30min for lunch and 1h49min for supper. Additionally, findings revealed that the use of EPC over wood and charcoal reduces the price of fuel and cooking time by two. For the case of a DC solar powered electric cooker, a hot plate, the time for cooking will be the same. However, referring to the structure of any type of a pressure cooker, electric or traditional, the cooking time can be reduced by factor of two or four. Therefore, the designed DC solar powered cooker can be applied to a DC EPC and the cooking time will be reduced by factor of two of four. The designed cooker has the ability to control the power referring to the change of the input voltage from a PV system for its supply. This is done by controlling the gate signal for the MOSFET using PID.This study was limited to the electrical design of DC solar powered electric cooker; therefore, it recommends to do further studies on its housing, mass and heat transfer specifically for DC Electric pressure cooker to increase that could improve its efficiency.