http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/biopower.html

Technology Research, Development, and Tools for Clean Biomass Cookstoves Funding Opportunity

In April 2012, the Energy Department announced a funding opportunity for applied research to advance clean biomass cookstove technologies for use in developing countries. The funding will support the development of innovative cookstove designs that allow users to burn wood or crop residues more efficiently and with less smoke than open fires and traditional stoves. These competitively selected projects will transform existing cookstoves and lead to designing next-generation cookstoves,  thereby helping to save lives and improve livelihoods. The Department of Energy, along with other federal agencies, is a founding partner of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private partnership to advance cookstove technologies that improve indoor air quality, reduce carbon emissions, and deliver important benefits for people's health and the economies of developing nations around the world.

The Energy Department will provide $2.5 million over three years to support the three innovative projects to  dramatically improve the combustion efficiency of stoves cooking with biomass fuel and will improve our understanding of combustion physics, thereby enabling future developments in cookstove designs. Pending fiscal year 2013 funds for this effort, an additional two alternate projects will be awarded.

The following projects were selected for award negotiations on October 18, 2012:

Selected Applied Research and Development for Products with Auxiliary Devices, including Fans, Sensors, and Controls, (Topic Area 1) Awardees

  *   BioLite LLC; Brooklyn, NY; up to $948,597: This project will develop an affordable thermoelectric generator and fan, which will be integrated into a range of stove designs that will significantly improve emissions performance  across the range of appropriate stove types.

  *   Research Triangle Institute; RTP, NC; up to $868,202: This project will develop an affordable thermoelectric add-on device to enhance biomass cookstove performance on existing cookstove types to self power a blower for improved combustion and demonstrate significant emission reductions of carbon monoxide and particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM 2.5).

Selected Combustion and Heat Transfer Research (Topic Area 2) Awardees

  *   Colorado State University; Fort Collins, CO; up to $998,637: This project will characterize the complex processes of solid biomass combustion and heat transfer in a semi-gasifier stove and develop a computational combustion model to assist in stove design.