Cooking with solar energy has long held human interest. Nowadays, you'll find many products of exotic origin on online marketplaces. However, the excellence of the French solar cooker is undeniable, and it is, of course, on our soil that the finest chapters of solar concentration have been written. For once, we can let out a mighty " cocorico" without any embarrassment.
Numerous stories or legends have endured through the centuries, testifying to man's interest in the power of the sun's rays. However, the first scientist to truly study solar energy was Horace Bénédict de Saussure. A Swiss inventor and renowned mountaineer, he is the father of the first solar collector, to which he gave the name helio-thermometer in 1774. This device consisted of a fir wood box insulated with black cork and closed with three panes of glass to concentrate solar radiation. This apparatus, which is not unlike today's box-type solar ovens, made it possible to generate a temperature of 87.7°C.
But we will have to wait until 1878 and the research of’Augustin Mouchot so that solar energy can be considered as a potential energy source to replace coal.
1878, at the Universal Exposition in Paris, a mathematics professor, Augustin Mouchot, drew crowds.
Since 1860, this inventor has been tirelessly harnessing solar energy. He has thus created a parabolic French solar oven and a boiler that works using the sun.
These inventions capture the attention of the French government. Indeed, our country is facing its first energy crisis with the scarcity of coal. It grants Augustin Mouchot a scholarship so that he can continue his work in Algeria.
Returning to Paris in 1878, Augustin Mouchot presented a strange machine composed of a giant parabolic reflector and a water-filled tube. The water, transformed into steam, powered a press.
Yes, you read that correctly. 150 years ago, a Frenchman had already realised that the sun could become an inexhaustible, clean, and self-sufficient source of energy.
Unfortunately for him, with the discovery of new coal deposits, his inventions would fall into obscurity. But the idea itself never died out.
It was not until the 20th century that France renewed its romance with solar energy. In 1949, Félix Trombe, a chemist and physicist, oversaw the design of the first French industrial solar furnace prototype in Mont-Louis, Occitania.
With a power of 50 kW, it generates temperatures of up to 3,000 °C. Still under the guidance of Félix Trombe, in 1962 the Odeillo Solar Furnace in Font-Romeu. To this day, it remains the most gigantic and powerful solar reflector in the world.
These devices have been designed for research purposes and enable the testing of the thermal resistance of materials.
While industrial solutions are being considered, other free spirits, more ambitious than the engineers and technicians working in Font-Romeu, are imagining solar cooking appliances adapted for domestic use, capable of safely simmering food.
In France, a few pioneers are tinkering in their gardens. They are testing reflectors, homemade satellite dishes.
Alain Bivas belongs to this category of passionate inventors.
Over the years, French know-how has emerged. Is France not the homeland of gastronomy?
From prototype to prototype, the Sunplicity sees the light of day and will be rewarded with a gold medal at the Lépine competition.
A new page of French solar cookers is being written with three values as its backdrop: the’ingenuity, the Energy sobriety and the culinary delight.
The Sunplicity is entirely made in France, in protected workshops. Each piece is meticulously designed and assembled with attention to detail and French quality.
Here, no disposable plastic, no connected gadget. Just an efficient, foldable and durable solar parabolic cooker that transforms sunlight into gentle, healthy and tasty cooking.
And it may not be insignificant to note that Alain Bivas lives in Occitania. A nod to history? The French solar cooker Sunplicity was not born in a start-up. It is the fruit of a legacy historical, cultural and scientific.
