[Stoves] Stove Tests - new protocol

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Paul

Please bear with me for a few more days.  I have a large contingent from GTZ 
reviewing the MCS project in Maputo (in fact the entire programme) and I 
have to go to Maputo tomorrow.

The Maputo Ceramic Stove production is going well.  We have now got a 
perfect firing in the oven every day with no losses.  Market cooking ladies 
are using stoves that are do damaged when we hand them over that we were 
thinking of grinding them up for grog.  The cracked and chipped and even 
split from top to bottom stoves are performing perfectly in the field, 
cooking week after week.  That was an exercise to see if they would, if 
pre-cracked, continue to break apart.  It seems not at this time.

The good stoves are of course doing fine.  There are about 200 in homes now 
for testing, including 36 being studied in detail for a paired sample 
baseline study.

The stoves are a little heavy at almost 4 kg (I would prefer 3.2 or so).

Everyone reports savings in excess of 50% which is a good sign.  It now 
needs to be carefully documented.

The savings will be assessed using the new protocol, even though the project 
document approves an earlier version that was not as informed (we now know!)

In very brief the protocol is

80% full pot, lid on
Cold stove, boil water, calculate specific fuel consumption based on INITIAL 
water mass.
Simmer for 45 minutes within 3 degrees, calculate specific fuel consumption 
based on BOILED water mass not final mass
Hot stove, boil water, calculate specific fuel consumption based on INITIAL 
water mass.
Power and efficiency are to be measured DURING the hot start phase.
If that is not possible for some reason, power and efficiency are measured 
immediately after the Hot Start boil, and run for as long as practical up to 
perhaps 40 minutes.  We don't mind a 10 or 15 minute thermal efficiency test 
as long as there is little water boiled off so that is best done when 
heating water between 40 and 75 deg - most people can manage that without 
having to have the whole stove on a scale, but a long boil is also very 
accurate.

Then the calculation starts.

Outputs are
Specific Fuel Consumption boiling
Specific Fuel Consumption simmering
Total SFC
Thermal efficiency at high power (%)
Minutae:
- compensated for fuel moisture
- compensated for remaining charcoal
- compensated for initial water temp (normalised)
- report the water remaining after simmering in case the operator was not 
doing a good job of limiting the power.

It is hard to cheat with this test.  If the operator messes up, the final 
numbers are prejudiced bu it does not report 'false positives'.

Regards
Crispin