Hongkongers got their first taste of cooking using the sun last Sunday when Japanese solar cooker designer Motoharu Takizawa demonstrated his inventions to five local families at Ma Wan Park.
Solar power was in the news last month when the Swiss-registered solar-powered vessel Turanor PlanetSolar visited the territory. The slow-moving craft takes all the energy it uses from sunshine and, for proponents of solar power, the ship is an example of the technology's maturity.
Takizawa says solar power technology can also be used as a relief measure in disasters. 'After the earthquake in Japan earlier this year, the rescue teams also used solar cookers,' he says.
In a drive to demonstrate the benefits of solar powered cooking, Takizawa brought over two cooker models from Japan - the medium-heat model Karupika (cooks at up to 205 degrees Celsius) and the high-heat model Oyapika (350 degrees).
Solar cookers allow you to steam, fry or boil by the power of sunlight alone. But the system has its drawbacks as it can't store solar energy. Don't expect to be cooking at night or even on a cloudy day. Solar powered cookers are spreading though - they have been in use in Lhasa, Tibet since 2009. The 48-year-old Takizawa has himself been committed to the research and design of solar cooker technology for about 10 years.
Such technology is now becoming more mainstream in Japanese society, with as many as 70 per cent of schools and more than 10 per cent of households using solar cookers instead of traditional gas or electric stoves, according to Takizawa.
