Standard Stove Performance Testing, 2014.
Author: Karen Weinbaum, PhD Candidate, Environmental Science, Policy & Management, UC Berkeley.
Improved cookstove performance tests require trade-offs between logistical complexities and a realistic reflection of cookstove performance outcome in the field. Despite well-documented problems associated with the use of the three different stove performance tests (WBT, CCT, KPT), little research has been conducted to improve these testing methods and references therein. The most salient issue is the inability to correlate the results of the three tests in a consistent manner, and evidence that the overall efficiencies during daily cooking activities in the KPTs have been highly misrepresented by the water boiling tests .
Controlled laboratory tests do not capture the complexity of real household conditions and behaviors, and thus there may be no direct correlation between performance in laboratory tests and performance in actual households. We thus recommend a two-pronged approach to testing: laboratory testing using local food preparation within the controlled laboratory environment, and controlled cooking cycles in the field for verification, using local users, in their households, all of whom prepare the same meals in order to reduce variability in stove performance testing results due to differences in number or types of meals.
