Rural communities in sub Saharan Africa have spent considerable time and energy in
their quest for obtaining cooking requirements. The utilization of solar energy for cooking is not a
widespread practice despite the fact that African countries are abundant in solar resources. A solar
cooker uses the freely, environmentally friendly, healthy and renewable solar energy resource as its
energy source, thus indicating its economical and sustainability advantages. This paper demonstrates
the possibility of using solar energy as an alternative to the traditional system of cooking local
foodstuffs within the rural communities of North-East Nigeria. The cooker was designed and fitted
with a black pot and an automatic tracking mechanism that can track the sun at 10° per hour,
following the sun movement for use in tropical dry climates. Parboiled rice of 1kg each was cooked
completely in 75 minutes at an average solar beam radiation of 623W/m2
after attaining maximum
temperature of 368K under clear weather condition. Whereas 1kg of beans and 1.1kg of yam were
cooked in 90 minutes at an average solar beam radiation of 536.5W/m2
and 430.1 W/m2
respectively.
The highest temperature reached for this test was 368K. The results indicated that a parabolic solar
cooker can easily cook these varieties of Nigerian local dishes within the range of 75 to 90 minutes
under the clear weather condition of Bauchi, north–east of Nigeria.