Alternative to gas cooker?

[Crocboy]

Originally Posted by Yihang

https://www.bonetticampers.com/acces...-burner-stove/

Looks like someone in QLD started making their own.

Their blurb says "made in Italy". Could be a good alternative to gas though.

[Adelie]

Based on personal research and testing, if you cook a lot (daily, most meals, eat out 3-4 times a month, 2 people) you will use about 130Ahr/d of electricity
To make that work you will need to add:
1. 250hr or so battery capacity
2. 400W of permanently mounted solar panels charging thru MPPT controllers.
3. 4,000W pure sine wave inverter. This presumes a 2 burner induction hob and a convection oven running all at once. For 120v AC this means each is running at 1800W so 3600W total. 4500W inverter would be better.

If you don't think you can mount that much extra panels, then consider a wind turbine or a small generator such as a Honda Eu2200.

If you cook less then there will be less demand. I have figured out electrical demand based on how much propane is currently being used. I'll post the chart later.

[hpeer]

IIRC Some years ago someone from this site, an Ozzie I think, did a detailed analysis of his cooking fuel usage and compared it to switching to a microwave. With the amount of solar/wind he had it was more fuel efficient to use the microwave.

[jockster1059]

Thanks to everyone who replied, I think the most viable alternative for us (without plastering the boat with solar panels or carrying a bulky generator) would be the Queensland spirit stove option, if it could be fitted with some kind of fiddle rails.


(BTW the quoted figure for fitting a new gas line + 2 stage regulator was $800-$900, not $8000 to $9000. I wouldn't mind paying that if I could be sure our old stove would pass a pressure test!)


Cheers Jim.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by hpeer

IIRC Some years ago someone from this site, an Ozzie I think, did a detailed analysis of his cooking fuel usage and compared it to switching to a microwave. With the amount of solar/wind he had it was more fuel efficient to use the microwave.

Actually, propane is slightly more efficient at heating water (50%) than using a microwave (46%). But it's an apples to oranges comparison. But if you have an excess of solar power that is free then the microwave is more cost effective.

For heating water a teapot on an induction hob is 76% efficient and an electric kettle is over 90%.

If you want to cook with electricity then you would want to use an induction burner for frying and such and a convection oven for baking etc. And you would want to figure out how much electrical draw to expect without actually spending the money to build a system just to find out you could provide enough power.

To estimate you could buy a counter top hob and cook all the things you normally do and record electrical usage then estimate how often a month you cook each of those things. Tedious and prone to errors of estimation.

The other way is to determine how long a bottle of propane lasts and exactly how much is used between full and empty, then adjust for relative efficiencies and the efficiency of your inverter. I've tested the relative efficiency of propane vs induction, see above for results. Using that I've calculated a table of propane to induction equivalency, see graphic.

The weakness so far is that I have not yet tested a propane oven against a convection oven. Given that a gas oven needs to be heavily vented so that it doesn't choke on it's on combustion exhaust, a lot of heat is wasted so it is reasonable to assume that there is a similar disparity in energy efficiency. When I perform the testing I will update. For the moment I assume the same energy efficiencies.

In order to use this table accurately you need to accurately measure consumption and time elapsed. That means weighing the tank to the nearest whole pound or half kg (better would be 1/2lb or 1/4kg) when full and empty and logging when the tank is first used and when it runs empty. To measure tank weigh I would suggest a luggage scale if you don't have access to something better.

A64Pilot indicated that he and his wife used a 10lb tank every 30d. Using the table I would predict they would need 124Ahr/d to cook electrically.