[Stoves] Biomass Fired Appliance Characteristics, Features, Qualities, Attributes and or Considerations

[Ranyee Chiang]

Tom and all,

In a recent EPA/Winrock webinar and at the Clean Cooking Forum, there were presentations describing ongoing work to evaluate durability.  Plans were also shared for a collaborative effort to further develop protocols and indicators that can be used by the sector.  (Monitoring stove lifetime is also important, but it is challenging to use as an indicator because of the time and resources and contextual factors, in homes or in the lab.  Existing methodology to evaluate durability and lifetimes will be reviewed and integrated into the current work.)  As the international standards process continues, the plan is to have the durability methods and indicators ready to add to the standards framework, addressing one of the gaps identified in the IWA resolutions.  All this work is ongoing and we will continue to provide updates about this progress.  The Alliance is supporting work in this area because issues of durability and stove lifetimes are a high priority and our efforts are focused on providing tools to evaluate and communicate about this issue.

The grant review process (external, peer, merit review) and criteria are provided in each request for proposals or applications.  The criteria for review represent the particular goals for that RFP or RFA, with each RFP or RFA representing one piece of the overall strategy.  If criteria is not mentioned, it doesn't not mean it is disregarded, particularly because the expert and independent peer review committees understand the challenges of helping the rural and urban poor with household energy.  And with the progress we are making with evaluating durability, we will have a clearer vocabulary and more data to discuss this issue.

Ranyee


Message: 1
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 2013 09:32:49 -0700
From: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>
To: "'Discussion of biomass cooking stoves'"
      <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Biomass Fired Appliance Characteristics,
      Features,   Qualities, Attributes and or Considerations
Message-ID: <000001ce33ad$8b9687a0$a2c396e0$@trmiles.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
 
> 5. Durability and ruggedness, longevity, will it last? will it burn 
> out? or will it break, what is the lifespan.
 
 
>From what I have heard in recent years at ETHOS, on the lists, and from
reports of the recent GACC meeting it seems like GACC is willing to sacrifice durability for performance in order to meet carbon and numbers goals. While some cultures may use a 1 year stove, others, especially in Latin America, value a robust, durable stove.
 
 
If you were to do a meta-analysis - study of studies - of systematic, multi-year monitoring of stoves including as many of the (now 41) criteria on Lanny's list as you can find, where would durability land in importance to the consumer? How would the individual stoves rank in durability? How would those results vary across the globe?
 
Most of us got our start by trying to help the rural poor. Urbanization has increased exponentially just since we began these discussions 17 years ago.
Are current strategies in stove development suited to the needs of urban households? Are we keeping pace with the demographics? Is durability important to urban households?
 
Finally, if GACC was created to serve us, how can we use it to meet our needs? Where can we find Lanny's criteria in the framework of GACC? Which of the GACC development tools including grants, workshops, and information tools include these criteria? Where does the money go? What means does GACC have to help those who are attempting to improve, and have demonstrated promising performance, in each of Lanny's categories? How do grant recipients score on stove performance in these categories? Correct me if I am wrong but it seems like the organizations that are in the best position to get GACC funding are those that are at the apex of stove politics rather than performance. We need to figure out how to make the organization benefit those who need it most.  
 
Tom