About
In case you wonder who is behind this website and why I decided to build it:
My entire career was tied to solar energy. I believe that mankind should not be depleting the planet’s resources, as we have done for more than a century. I made a living as a researcher in solar energy, developing novel optics to improve efficiencies of solar energy conversion systems, such as concentrating photovoltaics or thermal systems. Some 15 years ago, I started to inquire about the use of solar energy for cooking. After all, solar energy is essentially free (except for energy invested in equipment). What’s more, cooking with the sun does not heat up the home, causing secondary energy costs by increasing the expenditure for air conditioning in most countries.
A bonus of solar cooking is the slow cooking process which has the benefit of maintaining more of the vitamins and also preserving the taste of the food, while other solar cookers can work like a grill, and cook or fry at high temperatures. In Israel, few people are aware of this option. With this website, I would like to bring solar cooking to the attention of a larger population in this country and it is my hope that it will make a small contribution by encouraging people to use solar cooking, thereby reducing our collective CO2 footprint, even if only to a small effect.
A solar cooker can easily be home-made. There are numerous instructions on the internet, and I have included some of my own suggestions on our pages. Home-made designs may not be as efficient (may not reach as high a temperature as a commercial solar oven would) and it probably will not be as durable. Alternatively, one can buy a cooker – they are available from various manufacturers – unfortunately none in Israel. The import makes buying from abroad quite expensive with shipping increasing its costs by as much as 50%. We have imported several cookers to reduce shipping costs per unit and to make them more readily available in Israel via our on-line shop.
I hope you find this website informative and perhaps inspiring. Solar cooking is something that one has to learn – my wife and I started with a simple panel cooker using it only a few times a month and later acquired a commercial box cooker which over time became our primary oven, using it practically every sunny day (about how many sunny days there are in a year will be discussed separately – of course it depends where you live).