INTERIM REPORTING REQUIREMENTS FOR IWA TIERS OF PERFORMANCE

These reporting requirements incorporate comments from Alliance Partners from a public comment period (http://community.cleancookstoves.org/discussions/viewtopic/22/80), November – December 2012.

Goals: To build on the progress from the February 2012 ISO International Workshop Agreement (IWA)1 to establish interim standards for cookstoves, this document provides interim guidance for 1) how the Alliance and its Partners will standardize reporting of testing results for IWA Indicators and 2) ensuring independent and reliable testing and reporting for the IWA Tiers of Performance, while leaving room for integrating additional protocols (existing and new) into the IWA framework. This guidance will apply until international standards are formally developed and established, which may include lessons learned from these interim guidelines.

Background: ISO International Workshop Agreement (IWA)

In February 2012, more than 90 stakeholders from 23 countries met in The Hague to establish consensus on an ISO IWA that provides interim guidance for rating cookstoves on four performance indicators: fuel use, total emissions, indoor emissions, and safety. Each indicator has multiple Tiers of Performance (0 to 4) in order to highlight progress that has been made while encouraging further improvement. The IWA includes Tiers of Performance for the WBT 4.1.22 and for the Biomass Stove Safety Protocol3, and also provides a framework for establishing Tiers of Performance for additional test protocols. The IWA serves as a guideline for policy-makers, investors, manufacturers, consumers and others in the cookstoves community and it will inform any future updates to internationally agreed-upon cookstove standards and protocols. This IWA, with unanimous support among meeting participants, represents a significant step forward in global efforts to scale up clean cookstoves and fuels. The ISO International Workshop was hosted by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and the Partnership for Clean Indoor Air, and chaired by the American National Standards Institute.

Standardized Reporting Format (See Figure 1)

Each stove may have up to four (4) ratings for Tiers of Performance, one each for Efficiency/Fuel use, Emissions, Indoor Emissions, and Safety. Each of these four ratings will be based on lowest tier from the individual metrics for that indicator. For example, if a stove is tested to have Tier 2 for High power Thermal efficiency and Tier 3 for Low 

 Figure 1 – Standard Reporting Format4
4 The performance indicators and metrics may be updated as additional protocols are mapped to IWA Tiers of Performance. Tier and Sub-Tier Values are included for illustration.  

For testing results to be reported as IWA Tiers, the following five (5) criteria must be met:

1. Methodology and equipment must meet the criteria outlined in the IWA document and any updates that have been reviewed by Alliance Partners during a public comment period or that have been established as part of international standards development.

2. The testing must be conducted using protocols that have been mapped to IWA Tiers. For protocols not currently mapped to IWA Tiers, Tiers of Performance must be reviewed by Alliance Partners, evaluated by a technical committee with representation from testing experts, manufacturers, and other stakeholders, and following any established procedures for developing international standards. The acceptability of a protocol for a particular stove and tier designation should be determined by the ability of the test procedure to repeat the performance metric within one-third of the distance between tiers, under conditions that are consistent with the test specification.5

3. The testing data must be shared publically through the Stove Performance Inventory.6

4. The testing for a stove must be conducted by technicians and a testing center with no financial stake in the stove being tested or an alternative stove. Testing centers should provide complete disclosure of personal or institutional investments in any stove or energy related technologies by the lab, its subsidiaries or parent organizations, or its personnel.

5. The stove(s) tested must be randomly selected from the production line and should not be a prototype under development. 

Next Steps

Studies and discussions will continue for identifying tiers for additional protocols, including new or refined protocols that address additional indicators or additional stove and fuel types. The Alliance will work with the global consortium of regional testing and knowledge centers to ensure that a stove tested at different centers will have comparable and standardized results. The Stove Performance Inventory will be updated manually until tools and procedures are established for adding new testing data in a more streamlined way.

These interim reporting requirements may be updated as part of any future international standards process. For example, requirements for testing multiple stoves randomly selected from a production line may be added. These interim reporting requirements may also applicable for developing consensus on product labels, but these current requirements focus on reporting of testing results. 

 (Source: Alliance for Clean Cookstoves)