ARS | Publication request: TESTING AND REPORTING SOLAR COOKER PERFORMANCE

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: January 20, 2003
Publication Date: N/A

Interpretive Summary: This ASAE Standard test protocol has both the simplicity to be performed in a remote village and the precision to accurately and repeatedly provide quantitative results independent of climate. Since cooking power measures a device's ability to deliver heat to pot contents, design improvements can now be quantified in meaningful units, facilitating technological advances. .Researchers working on promising developments now have a common language and reporting format, facilitating global communication. Consumers have an intelligible single number to reference when selecting a product, facilitating commerce. As these advances lead to better solar cookers being more affordable and more widely used, the 2.4 billion people currently relying on vanishing forests come closer to a dignified and sustainable lifestyle.

Technical Abstract: This Standard for quantifying solar cooker performance specifies that test results be presented as cooking power, in Watts, normalized for ambient conditions, relative to the temperature difference between cooker contents and ambient air, both as a plot and as a regression equation for no less than 30 observations. This Standard specifies that cooking power be presented as a single number found from the above equation for a temperature difference of 50 C.