Solar cooking , i.e. cooking by using the heat from the radiation of the sun, can be an interesting option between mid-March and mid-September, when the sun is high over the horizon (and the sky is clear!). It provides the low-temperature cooking that best preserves the nutrients - with no use of fossil fuels, nor of electricity (which can then be used for other uses, where it has no alternative, such as lighting, electric engines or electronics).
The French company Solar Brother proposes for free the design of a simple, open-source Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solar cooker enabling temperatures up to 150°C, which they call the Copenhagen cooker. Its useful surface is 0.44 m2, and it has the advantage of being foldable after use (for an easy, flat storage). It is a cooker, meaning that it is suitable for slow, low-temperature cooking that is adapted for vegetables, cereals, pulses, eggs and poultry meat (see our factsheet on a sustainable diet).
Source: Solar Brother
Download the manual explaining how to manufacture the Copenhagen solar cooker.
Enhanced and simplified version developed by the CosmoPolitical Cooperative
The CosmoPolitical Cooperative has worked on this model of solar cooker and developed its own enhanced version, the "CosmoPolitcal Cooperative Solar Cooker 1", that is:
- more simple to build and install (you only need a flexible mirror, a pair of scissors, adhesive tape, 8 clips and 2 bricks);
- more robust (the reflector is made of one single piece of material, with no assembly needed);
- more powerful (its surface is 1 m2 );
- more cost-efficient (it optimises the usage of a sheet of 1 m2 of flexible mirror surface).
You can freely download below:
- the manual to build, install, dis-install and store the CosmoPolitcal Cooperative Solar Cooker 1;
- the figures supporting the manual.
The design of the "CosmoPolitical Cooperative Solar Cooker 1" is licensed under the free Creative Commons licence Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International .