USE OF SOLAR ENERGY FOR HEATING MEAL AT EDUCATIONAL CENTERS

Warming meal at educational centers for students is done with microwave ovens consuming high energy and making long queue. Conventional hot box solar ovens can warm meal using free, abundant, and clean Solar energy, during 10-11 months in a year in many places in Costa Rica. For the rest of the periods, if heating is required one can use Microwave Ovens. Different types of pots which can be used both in Solar and Microwave ovens have been searched and are studied. Due to pandemic period experiments have been done at authors house for measuring oven, meal temperature with solar radiation and with different pots. The heating of 14 lunch boxes is done with one solar oven and even simulating the clouds to see the performance and results are very promising. Due to COVID during 2020 and 2021, the classes were virtual, thus the real heating could not be done in any college to see the acceptance by the students and staff. We plan to promote see the real performance during 2022.