A Techno-Economic Analysis of Solar Injera Baking Systems
Abstract
The energy supply in Ethiopia is dominated by biomass energy, mainly for household consumption. A survey of 721 Ethiopian urban households presented here shows that about 55 % of the household energy consumption is spent on cooking and additionally 37 % is spent on baking. The end-energy consumption per household yields about 8.8 MWh per year, which is quite high regarding the fact that no space heating is needed. Thus, solar cooking is crucial for the reduction of CO2 emissions in Ethiopia. Further, the paper presents an economic analysis of an advanced solar baking stove that allows for indoor cooking. Despite the high investment costs of the solar stove, the levelized costs of useful heat, LCoEuse, determined for a life span of 20 years turn out to be about 60 % lower than the LCoEuse for baking with a typical biomass Mirt stove for the selected reference conditions in this case study.