New Mexico team roasts green chillies with solar power

The pilot project was led by Kenneth Armijo, a Sandia National Laboratories engineer who grew up on a chilli farm in New Mexico. With the help of colleagues at Sandia, Armijo placed a traditional steel-drum tumbling chilli roaster to the top of the 200-foot tower at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility, protecting the rotor mechanism from the intense solar heat. Using between 38 and 42 of the facility’s 212 heliostats, Armijo was able to achieve a temperature close to 500 degrees Celsius uniformly across the roasting drum, comparable to the temperature of a traditional propane chilli roaster.

“The principle behind this research was to see if high-temperature food roasting, not just peppers, could be done with solar and produce comparable results as traditional propane roasting, and the answer is yes,” Armijo said.

“We used green chilli to showcase the culture of New Mexico. Combining the state-of-the-art facilities and research at Sandia National Labs with the culture, food and people of New Mexico is just so special. What other national lab in the world would have done this?”