Solar-Powered Electric Stoves: A

feasibility study
Background
Recently, I have seen a vlog on YouTube showcasing a “Smart Solar Stove” designed by a team of
professors from the Department of Electrical Engineering, NIT Calicut. The inventors claim that the
contraption is capable of running purely on solar power, batteries, mains power or a combination of
the former captivated me. The reason for this invention is understandable: soaring LPG prices across
the state and the increased awareness about global warming forces people to consider alternatives
that are cheaper, safer and cleaner. Their contraption, at a basic level, consists of an induction
cooktop, a 150W flexible solar panel and a 16Ah battery, possibly lead-acid yielding 192Wh of
storage. The smaller battery is chosen for demonstration purposes. The inventors expect
applications in off-the-grid situations as in thattukadas, caravans, solar-powered homes etc. While
connected to the mains, it performs as a normal induction cooktop. As the cooktop costs about Rs.
15,000 (possibly including solar panels), it got me thinking: How practical can an electric stove be,
economically? I will attempt to answer this question in detail in the following sections. But first, let’s
define a reference from which to compare.

Thermal demands of Cooking

The minimum cooking temperatures are given in [1]. The website suggests that for egg yolks to set,
the minimum temperature should be 80°C. The temperature required to kill bacteria like salmonella
and E. coli is about 70°C. However, a lot of Indian (especially south Indian) dishes require frying
which requires temperatures upwards of 200°C. Even cooking rice requires boiling water which
happens at about 100°C. There we have the first reference: how much energy does it take to boil
water?

Boiling: The specific heat capacity of water is 4.186kJ/kgK. The room temperature can be taken as
25°C. Therefore, to begin boiling 1L (1kg) of water, the energy required is: 4.186 x (75) = 313.95kJ
which is about 87Wh of battery power. As most kettles operate at 1000W, it just takes about 5
minutes to boil water. In case of the inventors’ setup, at 150W (purely solar powered), water boils in
about 35 minutes, neglecting heat losses. This is definitely not great. It increases cooking time
greatly, loses much more heat, and in the end, results in a bad cooking experience. We need at least
600W to boil water in a reasonable time i.e., 10 minutes.

Pan frying requires a high temperature, about 200°C. This level of temperature is really difficult to
reach at lower power settings without any form of insulation or covering. As such, higher wattage is
required for this case: about 1000W.

Due to these reasons, most induction cooktops have a rating of 1000W or more. In our case too, we
can take 1000W as our reference point.
 Figure 1 Boiling time at various power settings (100% efficiency)

Battery Power
The cost of various lead-acid and lithium batteries are shown in the appendix. These data are taken
from the manufacturers’ websites.

Lead-acid batteries are the most cost-effective and widely used means of energy storage. It
however, is much heavier therefore not that useful in portable applications. It costs about Rs. 11/Wh
and has about 36 Wh/kg.

Lithium batteries on the other hand, has much higher specific energy but costs about Rs. 41/Wh.
This is much more expensive, which is not a viable substitute for the LPG problem.

In the calculations that follow below, we will use lead-acid batteries instead of lithium.

Solar Power
Solar insolation data for various locations in Kerala is shown in the appendix. These data are taken
from VEDAS, ISRO and it contains data averaged over the period 2009-2021.

From the data, it is clear that on average, one gets only about 90 watts per sq. m. of solar panel at
20% efficiency. For reliably achieving 150W, one must have 1.63m2 or 18 sq. ft. of panel area. Max
power available (at noon) = 2 x avg. power = 180W/m2. When running a 1000W cooktop purely on
solar panels, we need about 11.1m2 or 120 sq. ft. of solar panels. This is cumbersome for a portable
application or expensive for a home setting. When using a battery, the solar panels can provide
1kWh/m2 of charge per day i.e., the amount of energy that a 1000W device uses per hour.

The cost data of solar panels are given in the appendix. From the data it appears that Waaree solar is
the cheapest, at Rs. 41/W. However, for calculations we will be using the average i.e.,

Rs. 85.60/W. There is wide variation in the data for example, The specific cost varies by 42.62%. This
is also taken into account in the computations for the lowest and highest cost.

Computations
Cost of Panels
From the solar panel data in the appendix, the important metric is the specific cost in Rs./kWh/day,
denoted by 𝑐 . Let’s say that the cost of solar panels is 𝐶 rupees and the energy produced per day in
kWh/day is 𝐸 . Then,
𝐶
𝑐 = = 16612 Rs./kWh/day
𝐸
Now, the max cooking time, 𝑇 is calculated by:
𝐸
𝑇 = × 1000
𝑊
Combining both these equations we get:
𝐶
𝑇 = × 1000
𝑐𝑊
Where 𝑇 is in hours. The below graphs contain data for various specific costs and wattages.

Figure 2 Cost of solar panels vs max. cooking time at 100% efficiency

Figure 3 Cost of solar panels vs Tmax, at higher than nominal values

Figure 4 Cost of solar panels at lower than nominal values

 Figure 5 Cost vs Tmax, at lowest cost of solar panels

Taking into account Battery Costs

Here, we’ll keep the terminology to be the same, except for batteries, the subscript is ‘b’ instead of
‘s’. As the cooktop is used daily, the provision for storing a day’s worth of solar energy is required.
Therefore,

𝐸 =𝐸
𝐶 =𝐶 +𝐶
∴𝐶 = 𝑐 𝐸 + 𝑐 𝐸 = (𝑐 + 𝑐 )𝐸
𝐶 × 1000
𝑇 =
(𝑐 + 𝑐 )𝑊
 Figure 6 Total cost of batteries vs max. cooking time per day at nominal cost

Figure 7 Total cost of solar and batteries vs max cooking time per day at lowest cost

Conclusion
As we can see in the above graphs, the total cost of a 1000W solar setup that can operate for two
hours per day at lowest cost is about Rs.37000. For three hours per day, it costs more than Rs.
50000. At nominal cost however, for two hours per day, it costs well above Rs. 50,000. This is not an
easy switch. For comparison, a 40% efficient gas stove run on a 14.2kg LPG cylinder per month can
easily provide two hours’ worth of cooking time at 1000W power. As LPG costs about Rs. 1000 per
cylinder, the break-even time for a solar cooking setup is 37 months, or about 3 years. In all these
calculations, the induction cooker is assumed to be 100% efficient. However, that is not the case.
The battery may need to be replaced every 3-5 years which is not taken into account here. That may
push the break-even time well past 5 years. On the environmental side, the CO2 emissions for solar
is non-existent. Therefore, this is a viable option for middle-upper class families unless subsidies are
provided for such setups. If CO2 emissions are not a concern, biogas plants, due to their low
maintenance, are much more cost-effective. For travelers, where weight is more of a concern, solar
panels are still viable while using lower-power devices like rice cookers which operates at about
650W.

Increasing efficiency
There are three ways to increase efficiency:

1. Change cooking styles to meet the new demands: Examples include sealing vessels to
prevent loss of water by evaporation, use insulated vessels, etc.
2. Use better, automated control systems: The power of an induction cooker can be easily
controlled. Instead of relying on pressure cookers to control temperature by relieving
pressure, we can use cheaply available RTDs/thermal sensors and microcontrollers to detect
and control the heat supply much more effectively.
3. Rather than generate heat, move heat: Heat pumps do this. Using the hot side of the heat
pump, we get the heat equivalent of the power we supplied plus we get the heat
concentrated from the surroundings, at the expense of making the cold side colder.

Moving Heat
Typical efficient heat pumps have a CoP of 3 when starting to move heat. i.e., for every kW of power
supplied, it outputs 3kW of heat. As temperature difference between hot and cold sides increases,
CoP decreases. As we do not have the capability to include a big heat pump in the cooktops, we can
use Themoelectric coolers (TECs). Even if they are much more inefficient, they still have a CoP of 0.3
at zero temperature difference. But how efficient can they be?

The characteristic of a TEC device is given by this

equation:
Δ𝑇
𝑄 =𝑄 1−
Δ𝑇
When heating a substance, like water:

Q̇ = Q̇ + Q̇ = mc ∆Ṫ

Integrating,

Δ𝑇 = 𝐴 − 𝐴𝑒
Where
Δ𝑇 𝑊
𝐴= +𝑄
𝑄
Figure 8 TEC1-12706 characteristic
 𝑄
𝛼=
𝑚𝑐 Δ𝑇

𝑄 (𝐴𝑒 − 𝛼𝐴𝑡 + 𝛼Δ𝑇 + 𝐴)

𝑄 =
𝛼𝐷
𝑄 = 𝑊𝑡
% Extra energy:
𝑄
%𝜂 = × 100
𝑄
For TEC1-12706, the extra energy vs temperature difference is plotted below.

Figure 9 Percent moved heat vs delta T

This shows that at about Delta T = 60°C, 35% of the energy supplied is from the surroundings,
neglecting heat losses to the surroundings. This energy is independent of mass of the water. With an
efficient heat exchanger, the energy required for water to reach boiling temperature is reduced
greatly. After the max Delta T is reached, one can switch to induction to provide the rest of the
heating needs.
 Lead-Acid Batteries
Sl.No. Brand Model Capacity (Wh) Weight (kg) Sp.Energy (Wh/kg) Cost (MRP, Rs.) Sp. Cost (Rs./kWh) Volume (cm3) Sp.Volume (cm3/Wh)
1 Luminous RC18000 1800 52.50 34.29 18,600.00 10333.33 42188.08 23.44
2 Luminous RC15000 1440 46.00 31.30 14,950.00 10381.94 34218.80 23.76
3 Luminous IGSTJ18000 1800 50.00 36.00 25,100.00 13944.44 43255.07 24.03
4 Luminous ILTT26060 2640 64.00 41.25 29,900.00 11325.76 42188.08 15.98
5 Genus GTT250 2640 62.40 42.31 26,743.00 10129.92 38866.00 14.72
6 Genus GSTT200 2160 60.40 35.76 25,386.00 11752.78 38866.00 17.99
7 Genus GCT265 2880 72.00 40.00 31,465.00 10925.35 38866.00 13.50
8 Livguard 20060TT 2400 69.50 34.53 28,965.00 12068.75 39323.34 16.38
MEAN 36.93 11357.78 18.73
STD. DEV. 3.85 1256.40 4.35
% DEV, 10.42 11.06 23.25

LiFePO4 Batteries
Sl.No. Brand Model Capacity (Wh) Weight (kg) Sp.Energy (Wh/kg) Cost (MRP, Rs.) Sp. Cost (Rs./Wh) Volume (cm3) Sp.Volume (cm3/Wh)
1 Loom Solar CAML10048 4800 45.00 106.67 2,50,000.00 52.08 38983.20 8.12
2 Loom Solar CAML4012 500 4.00 125.00 23,000.00 46.00 3618.38 7.24
3 Okaya Royale XL 2048 13.00 157.54 63,999.00 31.25 66740.00 32.59
4 Okaya Royale 1024 13.00 78.77 31,999.00 31.25 66740.00 65.18
5 Tesla PowerWall + 13500 155.90 86.59 6,48,142.00 48.01 192556.00 14.26
MEAN 110.91 41.72 25.48
STD. DEV. 31.68 9.81 24.42
% DEV. 28.56 23.50 95.87
 Available Solar Power in various parts of Kerala

Power available at 20% Avg. Power available at

AGI Power
Sl.No. Place efficiency (Wh/m2/day) any instant (Pd/11.25hr
(kWh/m2/yr) (Wh/m2/day)
(Pd) day length) (W/m2)

1 Manjeswaram, Kasargod 1899 5202.739726 1040.547945 92.49315068

2 Vadakara, Kozhikode 1822 4991.780822 998.3561644 88.74277017
3 Alathur, Palakkad 1866 5112.328767 1022.465753 90.88584475
4 Kodungallur, Thrissur 1868 5117.808219 1023.561644 90.98325723
5 Vypin, Ernakulam 1865 5109.589041 1021.917808 90.83713851
6 Thiruvalla, Pathanamthitta 1844 5052.054795 1010.410959 89.81430746
7 Thodupuzha, Idukkki 1736 4756.164384 951.2328767 84.55403349
8 Vizhinjam, Trivandrum 1930 5287.671233 1057.534247 94.00304414
AVERAGE 1853.75 5078.767123 1015.753425 90.2891933
ST. DEV. 57.70553328 158.0973515 31.61947029 2.810619581
%DEV. 3.11% 3.11% 3.11% 3.11%
 Data on various solar panels
Model/ Rated Power Frontal Area Power Density Sp. Cost Sp. Power Sp. Cost (Rs./kWh/day) at
Sl.No. Brand Weight (kg) Cost (MRP, Rs.)
Technology (W) (m2) (W/m2) (Rs./W) (W/kg) 90.28 W/m2 insolation
1 190 0.93 204.52 11 20000 105.26 17.27 21196.80
Mono PERC
2 125 0.74 168.19 8 10000 80.00 15.63 13247.57
Loom Solar
3 440 2.23 197.34 24 35000 79.55 18.33 15455.51
Monocrystalline
4 540 2.60 207.59 28 50000 92.59 19.29 18925.06
5 540 2.57 209.79 27.5 22387 41.46 19.64 8563.34
Waaree Solar Mono PERC
6 445 2.17 204.74 23.5 18474 41.51 18.94 8368.69
Elfeland* 120 0.64 188.38 2.581 19058 158.82 46.49 29457.36
Mono (Flex)
130 0.76 171.96 17502 134.63 22794.07
Eapro
Mono PERC 175 1.03 170.40 11.9 11999 68.57 14.71 11503.51
AVERAGE 191.43 85.60 21.29 16612.43
STD. DEV. 15.53 26.46 10.34 7080.59
%DEV. 8.11% 30.92% 48.56% 42.62%