Solar cooking development in Algerian Sahara: Towards a socially suitable solar cooker

This paper presents a review of research works and studies carried out in the development of solar cooking in Algerian Sahara. The review is performed in such way to focus on diverse box type solar cookers that have been realized by the solar heating research team at the Research Unit in Renewable Energies in Sahara Medium (URER/MS-Adrar, Algerian Sahara). Research started with the realization of a simple solar box cooker with a tilted absorber-plate, then the construction of a double exposure solar cooker and then the development of a novel non-tracking solar box cooker, which is equipped with a fixed asymmetric compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) as booster-reflector and its absorber-plate, is in a form of a step. The last cooker can be fixed at a south building wall with its rear opening in kitchen; it can be more user friendly. This will allow a freedom of interactive cooking and it does not require the user to go out in the sun during its use. These qualities promote its uptake and made it a socially acceptable device.