Development and Implementation of a Performance Evaluation Process (PEP) for Solar Thermal Cooking Devices
Abstract
Solar Cookers International staff designed and built portable test stations for a performance evaluation process (PEP) for solar thermal cookers in response to a specific need expressed by the solar cooking sector that an independent, neutral agency develop a testing process for solar thermal cooking devices. The PEP test stations are based on commercially available components, including thermocouples, an anemometer, a pyranometer and Arduino hardware. The test station control software was designed to automate the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASAE) S580.1 protocol for Testing and Reporting Solar Cooker Performance; it measures temperature changes in an amount of water proportional to the intercept area of a solar cooker, while monitoring wind speed and solar insolation, for normalizing results.