Renewable Energy 44 (2012) 457e462

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Technical note

An exergy based unied test protocol for solar cookers of different geometries
Naveen Kumar*, G. Vishwanath, Anurag Gupta
IIITD&M Kancheepuram, IIT Madras Campus, Chennai-600036, Tamil Nadu, India

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 24 June 2011 Accepted 20 January 2012 Available online 9 February 2012 Keywords: Solar cookers Thermal test protocol Exergy analysis

a b s t r a c t
It is benecial for the consumer to have solar cookers of various varieties in terms of geometrical designs, performance and price but it is also a challenge to develop a uniform test standard for evaluating the thermal performance of the cookers irrespective of their geometrical construction. In this paper, four exergy based parameters, are proposed for solar cookers of different topological design, as their thermal performance indicators. To this end, graphs between exergy output power and temperature difference are plotted, and they resemble a parabolic curve for each design. The peak exergy (vertex of the parabola), can be accepted as a measure of devices fuel ratings. The ratio of the peak exergy power gained to the exergy power lost at that instant of time can be considered as the quality factor of the solar cooker. Besides, the exergy power lost is found to vary linearly with temperature difference irrespective of the topology of the device and the slope of the straight line obtained through curve tting represents the heat loss coefcient of the cooker. The proposed parameters can lead to development of unied test protocol for solar cookers of diversied designs. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Solar cookers are a very useful and popular thermal device which is available throughout the world. It is one of the few renewable energy thermal gadgets which are portable, user friendly, easily operable, economically competitive and meant to fulll the very basic need. Its affordable price makes it commercially very attractive, especially among the rural populace in the developing countries. In order to meet the demands of broad spectrum of the society and penetrate the market, different novel varieties of solar cookers have become available in accordance with peoples need and purchasing capacity [1e4]. Solar box type cookers (SBC) meet the need for domestic as well as community based applications. Similarly, SK-14, SK-10 and Schefer paraboloid type concentrating cooker are employed for faster cooking for domestic/community and industrial applications [5]. In addition, parabolic trough type concentrating cookers are being reported in recent studies for their versatile applications [6,7]. Depending on the topology of the cooker construction, different test procedures and thermal indicators have been established, which act as benchmark thermal performance evaluators for various geometrical varieties of the cooker [8e14]. On one hand it is good for the customer to have solar cookers of diversied designs in terms of geometry, performance and price while on the other hand it is
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: 91 4422578555. E-mail addresses: vatsnaveen@yahoo.co.in, nkumar@iiitdm.ac.in (N. Kumar). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2012.01.085

a challenge to develop a uniform test standard for evaluating the thermal performance of the cookers irrespective of their geometrical construction. In the absence of such unied test/standard protocol, it is very confusing for the customer to compare the performance of these devices. In addition, to promote renewable energy technologies (RETs), many governments throughout the world, are adopting environment friendly policies. This includes the provision of providing direct/indirect subsidies and other benets to the user on the usage of the RETs. Many a times, manufacturers are not able to receive the subsidy benets because the parameters set for eligibility criterion matches one design of solar cooker and not the others. Through the present manuscript, an exergy based unied test protocol, for solar cookers of different geometries, is proposed. In this protocol, the test methodology for conducting full load test for solar cookers remains the same but the analyzing procedure has been altered so as to fulll the above necessities. In order to develop a realistic and unied test protocol, reported data from different well known previously published manuscripts is utilized and it is analyzed comprehensively. 2. Methodology For testing the performance of the solar box type cooker, two gures of merit (FOM) viz. F1 and F2 are generally calculated, and these are given by Mullick et al. [8]. The rst FOM, F1 is dened as the ratio of optical efciency to the heat loss factor by bottom absorbing plate and is a measure of the differential temperature gained by the

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Nomenclature A c Eo EXi EXo F1 F2 G m Tam Tf Ti Ts Dt gross area of glazing surface m2 specic heat capacity of water J/kg K output energy J input exergy kJ output exergy kJ rst gure of merit m2 K/W second gure of merit instantaneous solar insolation W/m2 mass of water kg instantaneous ambient temperature K nal water temperature K initial water temperature K surface temperature of sun K time interval s
Ex e rg y Lo s t ( W)

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 0 10 20

Mass=2.5kg
data 1 linear

y = - 1.3092*x + 99.537 R 2 = 0.9348

30

40

50

60

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 2. Variation of exergy power lost with temperature difference for domestic SBC.

absorbing plate at a particular level of solar insolation. The second FOM, F2 is more or less independent of climatic conditions and gives an indication of heat transfer from absorbing plate to the water in the containers kept on the cooking tray inside the cooker. Bureau of Indian standards have also accepted these parameters as performance indicators for SBC [9]. However, as per international test protocol for solar box cookers, the performance should be estimated in terms of its standardized cooking power as given by Funk [10], which is calculated through extrapolation of the curve/data [10,11]. The value of the cooking power determined through this procedure comes out to be high and does not represent the actual cooking potential of the cooker. Internationally, the procedure for measuring the efcacy of cooking of solar cookers based on parabolic trough and Schefer concentrating type topologies are not very well known, nevertheless Schefer concentrators are generally employed for very large scale cooking/industrial operations. As per Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (India), thermal performance of SK-14/SK-10 type cookers should be determined by its heat loss factor, optical efciency and cooking power [12e14]. In all above mentioned thermal performance evaluation processes, energy based approach is employed. But, the benchmark parameters derived from the energy based method does not provide complete information and are inadequate performance indicators because their values can be misleadingly high or low depending on the temperature difference between source and sink, even though input energy condition may remain same. However, in an exergy based analysis, it is also possible to take in to account such qualitative effects affecting the system performance.

Exergy is a measure of the potential of the system to extract heat from the surroundings, as the system moves closer to the equilibrium with its environment [15,16]. After the system and the surroundings reach equilibrium, the exergy becomes zero. In the present manuscript, the case of each of the different solar cookers of the above mentioned geometries is taken and the exergy based analysis is applied so as to reach a holistic/uniform method for deciding the common thermal indicators irrespective of the cooker design topology. The exergy of solar radiation, as the exergy input EXi to the solar cooker, can be calculated using the available solar energy ux (GADt) and is expressible through Eq. (1) which has the widest acceptability [15e18].

    1 Tam 4 4Tam ADt EXi G 1 3 Ts 3Ts

(1)

where Tam is instantaneous ambient temperature, Ts is surface temperature of sun, G is instantaneous solar insolation, A is aperture area of cooker, and Dt is time interval. The suns black body temperature of 5762 K results in a solar spectrum concentrated primarily in the 0.3e3.0 mm wavelength band [15,16,18]. Although the surface temperature of the sun (Ts) varies due to the spectral distribution of sunlight on the earths surface, the value of 5800 K has been considered for the Ts. The energy gained by water in the vessel, kept inside the cooker, due to rise in temperature can be considered as the output energy (Eo) of the system and is mathematically given as

  Eo mc Tf Ti

(2)

In the expression above, the output energy depends only on the difference in initial and nal values of water temperatures Tf Ti

Mass=2.5kg
6.4615 6

y = - 0.0060569*x2 + 0.4347*x - 1.338 R2 = 0.9174 Maximum Power = 6.4615 W at Temperature Difference of 35.885 K Half Power = 3.2308 W at Temperature Difference of 12.789 K and 58.98 K

data 1 quadratic

Exergy Power(W)

4 3.2308 2

-2

1012.789

20

30

35.885 40

50

58.98

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 1. Variation of exergy output power with temperature difference for domestic SBC with its schematics.

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459

Mass = 5.0kg
20 18.212

y = - 0.022346*x + 1.3556*x - 2.3466 R2 = 0.9811

data 1 quadratic

Exergy Power(W)

16 14 12 10 9.1062 8 6 4 2 5 10.145 15 20 25 30.332 35 40 45 50.519 55

Maximum Power = 18.212 W at Temperature Difference of 30.332 K Half Power = 9.1062 W at Temperature Difference of 50.519 K and 10.145 K

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 3. Variation of exergy output power with temperature difference for SK-14 type cooker with its schematics.

but in actual practice, ambient temperature as well as the initial and nal water temperature values also play the role in deciding the efciency of the system, and this kind of qualitative effect cannot be accommodated in the energy based approach. The exergy gained by water in the vessel kept inside the cooker due to rise in water temperature can be considered as the output exergy (EXo ) [15e18] of the system and is expressible through

EXo Eo mcTam ln

Tf Ti

(3)

The beauty of the exergy analysis/approach is self evident in the expression above as it considers the effect of ambient temperature as well as the absolute values of initial and nal water temperature in addition to the temperature differenceTf Ti . The second term on the right hand side of this expression signies the exergy losses elucidating the true potential of the system in converting the input energy. Thus, exergy analysis is a more complete synthesis tool because it considers both the quantity and quality of energy transfer to and from the cooker. Here, it is proposed to plot a graph between output exergy power and temperature difference and t the data points with second order polynomial; temperature difference is the difference in the instantaneous water temperature and ambient temperature. From the tted curve, it is easier to obtain the peak value of exergy, which is very near to the actual value of the peak exergy. The temperature difference gap is the difference in the temperature difference values corresponding to the half exergy points of the curve. The exergy lost during the test period can also be plotted against temperature difference so as to estimate the overall heat loss coefcient of the cooker. In order to determine the above mentioned parameters for each of the different solar cooker geometries, the data and schematics from various earlier reported manuscripts is taken [17e20]. 3. Results and discussion

difference. This can be realistically considered as a measure of cookers fuel ratings. The ratio of the peak exergy gained to the exergy lost at that instant of time can be considered as the quality factor of the solar cooker. A higher quality factor is always desirable. The product of the temperature difference gap corresponding to the half power points and the peak exergy power can also considered to be another benchmark indicator in this kind of analysis. Higher temperature difference gap means the lesser heat losses from the cooker. This kind of scheme is generally considered in electronics for expressing the performance of a BJT amplier, as gain bandwidth product and also a quality factor in case of a notch/band pass lter. The heat loss coefcient of the device can be calculated by dividing the value of the slope of the line, obtained through linear curve tting of exergy lost variations with temperature difference, by the value of glazing/focal area. This approach is not dependent much on extrapolation and all the parameters are realistically calculated from the graphs/data. Calculations for the above mentioned topologies of the solar cooker are described in the subsequent sub-sections. 3.1. Domestic solar box type cooker The variation in the exergy output as a function of temperature difference for domestic SBC of aperture area 0.25 m2 is presented in Fig. 1, which depicts the case when the amount of water inside the cooking vessels/pots is 2.5 kg. The maximum exergy power obtained through curve tting is 6.46 W and the temperature difference gap corresponding to the half power points is 46.2 K. The peak exergy power and temperature difference gap product for this case

350 300

M ass= 5. 0 k g
data 1 linear

E x e r g y L o s t ( W)

250 200 150 100 50 0 5 10 15 20 25

y = - 5.4072*x + 334.84 R 2 = 0.9916

Solar cookers of four different geometrical constructions are considered for depicting their thermal performance on the basis of exergy based parameters. These geometries are domestic box type cooker, domestic SK-14 type cooker, Schefer community type cooker, parabolic trough type cooker. The proposed four exergy based parameters, which can be considered as the benchmark indicators of performance of the cookers are as follows, (i) Peak Exergy, (ii) Quality factor, (iii) Exergy temperature difference gap product, (iv) Heat loss coefcient. Peak exergy is the highest/ maximum exergy output power obtained through curve tting by plotting the graph between exergy output power and temperature

30

35

40

45

50

55

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 4. Variation of exergy power lost with temperature difference for SK-14 type cooker.

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M a s s = 2 0 . 0 kg
60 55.753

y = - 0.071023*x2 + 4.1428*x - 4.6595 R2 = 0.8682

data 1 quadratic

Exergy Power(W)

50 40

Maximum Power = 55.753 W at Temperature Difference of 29.165 K

27.877 20 10 0

Half Power = 27.877 W at Temperature Difference of 48.977 K and 9.354 K

9.354

15

20

25

29.165

35

40

45

48.977

55

Temperatu re Difference(K)
Fig. 5. Variation of exergy output power with temperature difference for Schefer type cooker with its schematics.

is found to be 298.5 WK. The experimental data, for performing calculation and obtaining the thermal parameters, is taken from Kumar [20]. The curve between the exergy lost v/s temperature difference is plotted in Fig. 2. Heat loss coefcient is obtained by dividing the slope of the curve (which depicts the exergy lost per change in temperature, i.e., W/K), by the gross aperture area. The heat loss coefcient and quality factor, for 2.5 kg mass of water, are found to be 5.24 W/K m2 and 0.123, respectively. The specic heat loss coefcient for this cooker is found to be 2.096 W/K m2 kg. 3.2. SK-14 type cooker The variation in the exergy output as a function of temperature difference for domestic SK - 14 type cooker of gross aperture area 1.47 m2 and a focal area of 0.134 m2 is presented in Fig. 3, which depicts the case when the amount of water inside the cooking vessels/pots is 5 kg. The reective area of the cooker is 1.47 m2 with its focal length equal to 0.28 m. The maximum exergy power obtained through curve tting is 18.21 W and the temperature difference gap corresponding to the half power points is 40.374 K. The peak exergy power and temperature difference gap product for the two cases is found to be 735.3 WK. The experimental data, for performing calculation and obtaining the thermal parameters, is taken from Kaushik [17]. The curve between the exergy lost v/s temperature difference is plotted in Fig. 4. The heat loss coefcient and quality factor, for 5 kg mass of water, are found to be 40.35 W/K m2 and 0.106, respectively. The specic heat loss coefcient for this cooker is found to be 8.07 W/K m2 kg. 3.3. Schefer community type cooker

and quality factor, for 20 kg mass of water, are found to be 54.125 W/K m2 and 0.099, respectively. The specic heat loss coefcient for this cooker is found to be 2.706 W/K m2 kg. 3.4. Parabolic trough type concentrating cookers The variation in the exergy output as a function of temperature difference for parabolic trough type concentrating cooker of aperture area 0.9 m2 and focal area of 0.088 m2 is presented in Fig. 7, which depicts the case when the amount of water inside the cooking vessels/pots is 6.3 kg. The maximum exergy power obtained through curve tting is 6.92 W and the temperature difference gap corresponding to the half power points is 23.15 K. The peak exergy power and temperature difference gap product for this case is found to be 160.198 WK. The experimental data, for performing calculation and obtaining the thermal parameters, is taken from Ozturk [18]. The curve between the exergy lost v/s temperature difference is plotted in Fig. 8. The heat loss coefcient and quality factor, for 6.3 kg mass of water, are found to be 47.73 W/K m2 and 0.087, respectively. The specic heat loss coefcient for this cooker is found to be 7.58 W/K m2 kg. The cooker which attains higher exergy at higher temperature difference is the better one. It has been also noticed that the variation in the exergy lost with temperature difference is more linear when temperature of water varies in the range of 60  Ce95  C (see Figs. 2, 4, 6 and 8). This range of temperature is also generally used in calculation/determination of F2 (second gure of merit), which is an important and well known performance indicator for SBC

1200

Mass=20.0kg
data 1 linear

The variation in the exergy output as a function of temperature difference for Schefer community type cooker of gross aperture area 8.21 m2 and secondary focal area of 0.36 m2 is presented in Fig. 5, which depicts the case when the amount of water inside the cooking vessels/pots is 20 kg. The primary reector area of the concentrator is 7.3 m2 with aperture diameters of 3.8 m lengthwise and 2.75 m widthwise and has depth of 0.3 m. The reective area of secondary reector is 0.36 m2. The maximum exergy power obtained through curve tting is 55.75 W and the temperature difference gap corresponding to the half power points is 39.62 K. The peak exergy power and temperature difference gap product for this case is found to be 2208.815 WK. The experimental data, for performing calculation and obtaining the thermal parameters, is also taken from Kaushik [17]. The curve between the exergy lost v/s temperature difference is plotted in Fig. 6. The heat loss coefcient

1000

Exergy Lost(W)

y = - 19.485*x + 1132.7 R2 = 0.9916

800 600 400 200 0

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 6. Variation of exergy power lost with temperature difference for Schefer type cooker.

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Mass = 6.3kg
9 8 6.9149 6 5 4 3.4574 3 2 1 22
Maximum Power = 6.9149 W at Temperature Difference of 25.883 K y = - 0.02581*x2 + 1.3361*x - 10.376 R2 = 0.6676
data 1 quadratic

Exergy Power(W)

Half Power = 3.4574 W at Temperature Difference of 14.308 K and 37.458 K

24

25.833

28

30

32

34

36

37.458

40

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 7. Variation of exergy output power with temperature difference for parabolic trough cooker with its schematics.

Mass=6.3kg
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40
data 1 linear

y = - 4.2007*x + 187.65 R2 = 0.8117

The amount of heat energy at higher temperature is more valuable than the same amount of heat energy at lower temperature and in energy analysis it is not possible to take into account such qualitative difference. The exergy analysis is a better synthesis tool because it accounts for the temperatures associated with energy transfers to and from the cooker, as well as the quantities of energy transferred, and consequently provides a measure of how nearly the cooker approaches ideal efciency. To establish a test standard for different types of solar cookers, one may require more comprehensive testing and data analysis. However, the proposed parameters may stimulate the discussion and strengthen the case for exergy based test standards. 4. Conclusion An exergy based analysis is applied to solar cookers of different designs. Variations in exergy output and exergy lost with respect to temperature difference are studied and four thermal performance indicators, viz. peak exergy, quality factor, exergy temperature difference gap product and heat loss coefcient, are proposed. The approach presented through this manuscript is comprehensive, realistic and exible for it can easily accommodate the effect of variations in solar insolation (peak to valley) which can be greater than 300 W/m2. The exergy output power, if required, can be converted into standardized exergy power on par with standardized cooking power. References
[1] Nahar NM. Design development and testing of a double reector hot box solar cooker with transparent insulation materials. Renewable Energy 1997;23: 167e72. [2] Sonune AV, Philip SK. Development of domestic concentrating cooker. Renewable Energy 2003;28:1225e34. [3] Arenas Jose M. Design, development and testing of a portable parabolic solar kitchen. Renewable Energy 2007;32:257e66. [4] El-Kassaby MM. New solar cooker of parabolic dish: design and simulation. Renewable Energy 1991;1:59e65. [5] Patel NV, Philip SK. Performance evaluation of three solar concentrating cookers. Renewable Energy 2000;20:347e55. [6] Fernandez-Garc A, Zarza E, Valenzuela L, Perez M. Parabolic-trough solar collectors and their applications. Renewable Sustain Energy Rev 2010;14: 1695e721. [7] Petela R. Exergy analysis of the solar cylindrical-parabolic cooker. Solar Energy 2005;79:221e33. [8] Mullick SC, Kandpal TC, Kumar Subodh. Testing of box-type solar cookers: second gure of merit F2 and its variation with load and number of pots. Solar Energy 1996;57:409e13. [9] BIS 2000. Indian standards solar e box type- specication part 3 test method (rst revision) New Delhi: IS 13429(part 3); 2000. [10] Funk PA. Evaluating the international standard procedure for testing solar cookers and reporting performance. Solar Energy 2000;68:1e7.

Exergy Lost(W)

Temperature Difference(K)
Fig. 8. Variation of exergy power lost with temperature difference for parabolic trough cooker.

[8,9,11]. For the sake of completeness, a comparative compilation of values of the proposed parameters for various types of solar cookers is tabulated in Table 1. Thermodynamically, SBCs are the best solar cooking device, as heat loss coefcient is the lowest and quality factor is the highest for these gadgets, among the above considered geometries. The peak exergy power temperature difference gap product is a representative parameter of rate of increase in water temperature during performance evaluation period. On this basis, SK-14 type and Schefer cookers are more suitable for fast cooking. However, between these two, SK-14 has lesser heat loss coefcient and higher quality factor and thus can be considered a better device for fast cooking at smaller operations. However, for larger cooking\industrial applications\operations Schefer concentrator type cookers are preferable because of higher peak exergy power and temperature difference gap product. Based on these parameters the parabolic trough type cooker is found least suitable for cooking.
Table 1 Comparison of performance of solar cookers w.r.t. proposed parameters. Solar cooker geometry Peak exergy power (W) Temperature difference gap at half power (K) 46.2 40.374 39.62 23.15 Peak exergy power Heat loss Quality and temperature coefcient factor difference gap (W/m2K) product (W-K) 298.5 735.3 2208.815 160.198 5.24 40.35 54.125 47.73 0.123 0.106 0.099 0.087

SBC 6.46 SK-14 18.21 (domestic) Schefer 55.75 (community) Parabolic trough 6.92

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N. Kumar et al. / Renewable Energy 44 (2012) 457e462 [16] Petela R. Engineering thermodynamics of thermal radiation for solar power utilization. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2010. [17] Kaushik SC, Gupta MK. Energy and exergy efciency comparison of community size and domestic-size paraboloidal solar cooker performance. Energy Sustain Dev 2008;3:60e4. [18] Ozturk HH. Experimental determination of energy and exergy efciency of solar parabolic-cooker. Solar Energy 2004;77:67e71. [19] Ozturk HH. Comparison of energy and exergy efciency for solar box and parabolic Cookers. J Energy Eng 2007;133:53e62. [20] Kumar Subodh. Thermal performance study of box type solar cooker from heating characteristic curves. Energy Convers Manage 2004;45:127e39.

[11] El-Sebaii AA, Ibrahim A. Experimental testing of a box type solar cooker using the standard procedure of cooking power. Renewable Energy 2005;30: 1861e71. [12] Mullick SC, Kandpal TC, Kumar Subodh. Thermal test procedure for a paraboloid concentrator solar cooker. Solar Energy 1991;46:139e44. [13] http://www.mnre.gov.in/pdf/test-proc-dish-cooker.pdf. [14] Kumar Subodh, Kandpal TC, Mullick SC. Heat losses from a paraboloid concentrator solar cooker: experimental investigation on effect of reector orientation. Renewable Energy 1991;3:871e6. [15] Petela R. Exergy of undiluted thermal radiation. Solar Energy 2003;74: 469e88.