Figures of merit and their relevance in the context of a standard testing and performance comparison methods for solar box Cookers

Abstract

Solar cookers, in particular solar box cookers, are becoming more popular and widespread. New ideas, manufacturing techniques and higher performance designs are being proposed. As usual, a good testing standard is an important tool for the market and for cooker acceptance from the users. In the past, testing procedures and figures of merit have been proposed [1–5] for cooker characterization. These have several limitations that can be eliminated with a deeper analysis of solar box cooker optical a thermal behavior. This paper proposes a revision of these procedures yielding more meaningful and useful Figures of Merit. This work can be a first step towards a future and more precise testing standard. This revision is formulated keeping an important characteristic of the existing proposals: simple and available instrumentation allowing these tests to be carried anywhere in the World, with a minimum of investment and/or lab conditions.