Vol. 5 No. 4 (2021)
Articles

Temperature Profile Study of Solar Hot Box Coupled with Auxiliary Solar PV Powered Thermoelectric Module

Published 2021-12-23

Abstract

Hot box type solar cookers can be a promising option for meeting the challenges of clean cooking fuel to communities in developing countries. One of the major components of hot box solar cookers is absorber tray, which is responsible for converting solar radiation into useful thermal energy for heating load. One of the shortcomings of solar hot box is that cooking is slow and the performance decreases even under intermittent cloud cover. For improving the efficiency of hot box solar cooker it is important to provide auxiliary heating. The present work focuses on enhancing the thermal performance of solar hot box by use of auxiliary solar PV powered thermoelectric module. A box type solar cooker of size 70cm×70cm×25cm was taken for the study and thermoelectric module was connected at the back side of absorber base plate. The thermoelectric modules were provided power through solar PV panels. Experiments were performed with one and two Peltier modules with PV panel power supply. It has been observed that with auxiliary heating and solar cooker placed in sun, the temperature rise was faster by around 1-2 hrs. Thus this combination of solar hot box with thermoelectric modules may be useful in reducing cooking time and improving efficiency of the system.