Indian MNRE Pilot Project To Evaluate Community-Sized Cookstoves

A pilot for field testing and evaluation of community sized biomass cookstoves for subsequent development and deployment of improved cookstoves is now being implemented by India's Delhi IIT on a mandate from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

The project will be implemented through nine field agencies in eight states: Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. Each agency will be installing fifty stoves in the clusters that have been already identified.

Based on the requirements of each location, the stoves will have to be of three sizes. The smallest size of the stove will aim at catering to 50 people, the medium size for 100-150 people, while the large size stove is targeted at restaurants and commercial setups. The stoves are expected to have fuel burning rate/power output ranging from 5KW to 10KW (consuming about 4kg to 8kg of biomass per hour respectively) and the efficiency of the stove should not be less than 30% in a water boiling test in the laboratory.

The emission rate from the stoves are required to meet the BIS standards of CO, CO2 ratio, not more than 0.04 and particulate matter 2mg/m3. The stoves should carry a warranty of 3 years for the combustion chamber and 2 years for other accessories such as fan and motor. It should also be able to use locally available biomass or be supplied with fuel such as pellets, briquettes with fixed prices for 2 years.

The manufacturers who get the order are to deliver the stoves to the various implementing agencies directly and get the payments from them. However, in case of fixed type of stoves, the manufacturer/supplier is supposed to construct them on the specific sites identified by the implementing agencies.

The selected bidders will have to submit at least one sample to IIT Delhi for testing the parameters.

The Notice Inviting Quotation for technical and financial bid submission from cookstove manufacturers was open till 3rd January, 2011.