In December 2024, 5 ISECs with concrete built-in heating elements have been took to Sanda Kagbanda, a village in BASSAR county at Kara region in Togo. The goal is that the ISEC would be used by 30 households in order collect data on our ISEC performance in cooking local meals.
We have met users who were happy to experiment this fuel free solar electric cooking system behalf local authorities permission
The 5 ISECs are given to 5 households to be used for 1 month, after another group of 5 households will receive the ISECs till all 30 households will be covered. So from December to February, 15 households have used the ISECs. A team from Lome university at electricity efficiency institute called CERME with which we are in partnership have decided to pay a visit to users at SANDA Kagbanda and collect data on the ISECs use. The workshop took 4 days from February 23th to 26th.
Quantitative and qualitative data have been collected on the ISEC performance and it appeared that ISEC cook all local meals slowly. Only Akoume( maize flour boiled meal) were difficult to prepare. Users have said that ISEC save time and money because they don’t collect firewood and they do other activities when cooking. The have even noticed that food cooked with ISEC taste better than food cooked in traditional cook stove.Users have requested to reduce the cooking time and add capacity for cooking in the night or cloudy days. They also requested to reduce the weight of the cooker and increase the cooking volume to allow big cooking pans.
All these users request will be taken into account in the coming design. From now there are other households who are continuing the experiment till May