Devotees come from all corners of the world to Shirdi - a town where Sai Baba lived.
Legend has it, he was man who performed miracles to help the poor.
Almost 100 yrs of him taking Samadhi, Shirdi boasts of a Modern day Miracle - The Worlds Largest Solar Cooking System,
where 73 solar dishes capture energy from the Sun and use it to cook food for 100,000 pilgrims who visit this temple daily.
The Para's raise the temperature of water to up to 650 degree Celsius, generating steam which is used to cook food.
The World's largest solar steam system installed in Shirdi's "Sai Prasadalaya" by the Sai Sansthan,
has been designed for cooking meals for 20,000 devotees daily, an official release said.
On Thursday, 30th July`2009 the Solar Steam cooking system, costing Rs 1.33 crore,
was Inaugurated by the New & Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah.
The Centre has granted a subsidy of Rs 58.40 lakh so that the Shirdi Sansthan can save every year 1 lakh kg of LPG,
estimated to cost Rs 20,00,000. Some of the other large solar steam cooking systems installed include one at
Mount Abu in Rajasthan for 10,000 people per day & Tirupathi in Andhra Pradesh for 15,000 people a day.
The Steam System at Shirdi generates about 3,500 kg of steam every day.
The System will generate Steam for Cooking even in the absence of electricity
to run the feed water pump for circulating water in the system.
The result is a far cry from a traditional Indian kitchen that uses Gas, Kerosene or Firewood.
"It's so much cleaner now" says Dilip Baba Singh, the chef who is been cooking at the Temple kitchen for 15 years.
In this cooking there there is no smoke, no trees cut down for wood, no carbon dioxide emitted by burning fuel.
There are financial benefits too as it saves hundred's of kgs of Oil everyday, which is a monthly saving of almost 7000 dollars.
The specialty of this Wolfgang Scheffler Solar cooker is that it generates steam
unlike the earlier models where the cooking pot was placed at the focal point of the parabolic minor.
This system is integrated with the existing boiler to ensure continued cooking even at night and during rain or cloudy weather.
The solar cooking system installed at Shirdi follows the Thermosiphon principle and so does not need electrical power or pump.
The Solar Steam cooking system installed at Shirdi has parabolic concentrators / dishes (called Scheffler dishes)
installed on the terrace of Sai Prasad Building No.2. A Parabolic type concentrating Solar Steam cooking system
was commissioned at Shri Saibaba Sansthan, Shirdi on 24th May`2002 after receiving financial assistance
of 50% of the total project cost from the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, Govt. of India.
This Parabolic type concentrating Solar Steam cooking system is the brain child of Deepak & Shirin Gadhia
who floated the "Gadhia Solar Energy Systems Pvt Ltd" after working on it in Germany & then bringing it to India.
Deepak Gadhia said that he realized what India needed was appropriate technology, not high technology.
In India's case that meant taking advantage of it's Geography and Climate.
He added that India was blessed with Sun which was an added advantage.
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On 17th December 2013, at an award ceremony, the Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Trust (Shirdi) got recognition
for installing the biggest Solar Steam Cooking Project by any religious institution in the world.
It received an Award from Shri. Farooq Abdulla, Minister for Non-Conventional Energy, Government of India in New Delhi.
It has also been declared as an unique demonstrative project and sanctioned the subsidy amounting to Rs.13,30,000/-.
The award was received by Shri.Amrut Jagtap, Chief Mechanical Officer of Shri Sai Baba Sansthan Trust (Shirdi).
In order to save the daily fuel cost @ Sai Prasadalaya where the Prasad food is cooked, the Shirdi Sansthan Trust installed
one of the largest solar steam project in the world on 30th July 2009, because of which they were able to save 20 KG of LPG,
costing around Rs.21,000 per day, totaling it upto around Rs.39 Lakhs till date.
This figure of savings will only increase every year because of the increasing cost of LPG.
In order to eliminate the safety lacunas in the project, the modification work in this project
which was carried out as per the Indian Boiler Act was also completed recently.
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