Tailor made monitoring devices - hc-solar
Dr.-Ing. Christoph Müller
Martin-Luther-Str.12
52062 Aachen-Germany
The SOLCODAT energy meters allow determining the real use of individual concentrating solar cookers. This allows the most exact remuneration for each participant in CDM or Pay-per-Use projects.
The measurement of the energy yield still depends much on factors which are difficult to specify. This includes the quality of the reflectors, the size and the absorption coefficient of the used cooking pots. These parameters can be evaluated once in a year, when the data is downloaded from the SOLCODATS. Nevertheless, the SOLCODAT represents one of the most exact and suitable methods at the moment available for a complete and extensive monitoring of concentrating solar cookers. This is also due to its robust design and potentially low price.
An alternative to this method could only be an acceptance study, which implies a great effort of time and resources. Another big disadvantage of a general acceptance study is, that it grants a fixed average remuneration for each participant. This is not in direct relation with the actual individual use and does not motivate users to the same extend to use the cookers, as the positive feedback is missing.
The measurement results of 50 SOLCODAT devices on the Argentinian Altiplano have shown that each family can save in average 3 kWh per day with its solar cooker. Regarding the calculation of avoided CO2, this amounts to an equivalent of 1,9 tCO2 when using a wood stove (20% efficiency) or 0,58 tCO2 using a gas stove (40% efficiency). Depending on the replaced stove type, the average refund from CDM certificates reached 8 to 26 Euros per participant and year (1 tCO2=15 Euro). In poor regions this additional income from CDM programs helps users to finance their solar cookers within a few years only by cooking with it, improving dissemination of this technology.
If you are interested implementing our monitoring devices in your projects or if you want us to design a tailor made device, we would be happy to get in touch with you.
