DOE request input about wood heater R&D needs

The Bioenergy Technologies Office of the US Department of Energy has begun to provide R&D funding

to the wood heater manufacturing community.  To date, it has had two rounds of funding, with $10 million available.  The DOE provides R&D funding to many different renewable energy technologies to "enable sustainable ... energy security, reliability and resilience while creating economic opportunities across the country."  The Bioenergy Technologies Office "selects research and development projects through open and competitive procurements called Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOA) and encourages collaborative partnerships among:

• Industry
• Universities
• National laboratories
• Federal, state, and local governments, and
• Non-government agencies.

Now, the DOE is asking for input from the extended wood heater community about what the community needs to build cleaner and more efficient stoves.  This likely indicates that they may change the focus of their funding next year.  In the past, they provided funding for 

• Novel and innovative residential wood heater designs to improve combustion chamber geometry, combustion air flow distribution, mixing of combustion air with gasification products, stove baffling designs, etc. 
• Improvements in automation of stoves to optimize combustion control. 
• Wood heater power generation via thermoelectric module integration 
• Improvements in catalyst technologies for emissions reduction

Input should be sent to FY21MultiTopic@ee.doe.gov and is due by 5:00 PM September 21, 2020.  We have reproduced the details of the Request for Information below (except we omitted language about a parallel ROI on biofuels). For the full text, click here.

FY 2021 Bioenergy Technologies Office Multi-Topic RFI (DE-FOA-0002386)

DATE:           August 20, 2020 

SUBJECT:     Request for Information (RFI) 

Description 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) is requesting information on research opportunities related to residential wood heater technology advancement 

Purpose 

The purpose of this RFI is to solicit feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders on issues related to overcoming the technical barriers and challenges in the design of clean, efficient residential scale wood heaters. EERE is specifically interested in information on identifying the critical technology gaps and resources required to significantly reduce emissions and improve efficiency of residential wood heaters. Gaps of interest include but are not limited to the stove design, automation, catalyst development, retrofit technologies for older wood heaters, sensor technology, and stove performance testing methods. 

This is solely a request for information and not a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). EERE is not accepting applications. 

Category 1: Residential Wood Heater Technology Advancement 

Technological Barriers 

1. What are the critical technical hurdles for improving performance of stoves for new installations (e.g. combustion chamber design, combustion air management, controls, mixing, sensors, etc.)? 

2. What are the critical technical hurdles for improving performance of stoves already installed in homes (e.g. combustion chamber design, combustion air management, controls, mixing, sensors, etc.)? 

3. What practical and new techniques are used to significantly reduce transient emissions (startup, shutdown, load changes)? 

4. What practical and new techniques are used to measure transient emissions that could be implemented in laboratory or field testing? 

5. How can new exhaust emission control technologies be developed and practically deployed? 

6. How could integrated hybrid systems, in which biomass heaters are combined with other technologies such as heat pumps, solar, and high efficiency gas and liquid-fired appliances, be a route to reduced emissions? What are the technology barriers to this approach? 

7. How could field measurement methods be improved to ensure that biomass-appliances do not create local air quality issues in long-term use? 

8. What stove features commonly encourage end-users to purchase new or replace a wood heater? Or, what stove features are commonly attractive to the end-user? 

9. What advantages or disadvantages would continuous field performance data provide for advancing stove designs? 

Tools and Capabilities

1. How are trial-and-error test methods used to improved stove performance and advance stove design (i.e. development by implementation of incremental change and testing)? 

2. Is access to performance testing facilities a barrier to development? 

3. What in-house test methods are relied upon to validate and facilitate wood heater development? 

4. How much could rapid performance measurement methods shorten R&D test cycles? 

5. What specific test methods would be of interest to your enterprise? 

6. How are modeling and simulation tools being applied to improve wood heater designs? 

7. How could modeling and simulation tools be improved to meet your needs? 

8. What are the fundamental modeling gaps to enable broader use of modeling and simulation such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to improve wood heater design? 

9. How are current measurement methods meeting your needs for evaluating performance and emissions from wood heaters? What could be done better? 

10. What performance/emissions measurements are most challenging to obtain? What makes obtaining these measurements challenging? 

11. What are three primary challenges your enterprise faces for advancing stove designs?

 Request for Information Response Guidelines 

Responses to this RFI must be submitted electronically to FY21MultiTopic@ee.doe.gov no later than 5:00pm (ET) on September 21, 2020. Responses must be provided as attachments to an email. It is recommended that attachments with file sizes exceeding 25MB be compressed (i.e., zipped) to ensure message delivery. Responses must be provided as a Microsoft Word (.docx) attachment to the email, and no more than 6 pages in length, 12 point font, 1 inch margins. Only electronic responses will be accepted. 

EERE will not respond to individual submissions or publish publicly a compendium of responses. A response to this RFI will not be viewed as a binding commitment to develop or pursue the project or ideas discussed.

Please identify your answers by responding to a specific question or topic if applicable. Respondents may answer as many or as few questions as they wish. 

Respondents are requested to provide the following information at the start of their response to this RFI: 

• Company / institution name; 

• Company / institution contact; 

• Contact's address, phone number, and e-mail address.

Test Results, Presentations and Photos from the 2014 Collaborative Stove Design Workshop

Test Results

Updated on Nov. 24

Part of the Workshop rules was a requirement that teams had to publicly share their test results, which is a key part of the collaborative and educational process. During the Workshop, each team presented their test data to the 50 attendees who had the opportunity to discuss the results and give feedback to the  team.  Unlike EPA test, which starts when the stove is already hot, we used a warm start, capturing some start-up emissions, we used cordwood instead of crib wood and we used higher moisture content wood. Note: any gram per hour (g/h) references in the below test results are not comparable to g/h values from EPA test labs because we did not follow the Method 28 test protocol. 

1. MF Fire, the Mulciber. Powerpoint link.
2. The Kleiss stove. Powerpoint link.
3. Wittus Twinfire, Powerpoint link.
4. The VcV, PDF link.
5. Catalus Ventus, PDF link.

Team Presentations about their Stoves
Each team presented the concepts and technologies in the stoves. For a brief technical overview of all the stoves with contact info for the Teams, click here.

1. The Mulciber (powerpoint)
2. The Wittus Twinfire (pdf)
3. The VcV (pdf)
4. The Catalus Ventus (pdf)
5. Kliess (powerpoint)

Expert Presentations
During the Workshop, there were a series of expert presentations and webinars about automation, traditional stove technology, public health implications, air quality, regulatory issues and other relevant topics.

1. Dr. Tom Butcher, Brookhaven National Lab, Review of the Automated Stove Test Protocol (powerpoint)
2. Webinar with the five teams, hosted by BTEC.
3. Glenn Miller, Fairbanks Air District,  Technology Improvements vs. Behavior Modification (powerpoint)
4. Ellen Burkhard, NYSERDA, Renewable Heat New York (powerpoint)
5. Norbert Senf, MHA, Emission Testing of Masonry Heaters (powerpoint)
6. Gael Ulrich, Smoke Particle Formation Fundamental, (pdf)
7. Peter Cullen, Wohler SM 5000 (powerpoint)
8. Phil Swartzendruber, Puget Sound Wood Stove Retrofit Open Challenge (pdf)

Feedback Survey: Results of a 10 question feedback survey about the Workshop by teams, participants and organizers.

Photos: Day 1

Ivana Sirovica, Jessica Peterson and Jeff Hallowell, from ClearStak Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Rebecca raking coal bed to prepare for the next load of fuel. 

Thanks to John Pilger and Chimney Safety Institute of America and Olympia Chimney for donating pipe and installation!

Indigo Hotel in Riverhead NY - our base for the week

The Testo shows real time emissions, with top line showing particulate matter (PM)

Rebecca Trojanowski removes filters. The dark circle in foreground are the particulates on a filter from the test burn that will be weighed to determine grams per hour.

Even the kindling is carefully weighed so that each stove gets the same warm up rick.

Jessica Peterson from ClearStak working late into the night to prepare for testing tomorrow.

Photos: Day 2

Taylor Myers showing a thermal image of the Mulciber stove. 

Ben Myren, Tom Butcher and Eric Schaeffer firing up the New Zealand VcV stove. 

Lab in Bldg 815 with the VcV and Kleiss stoves.  (They brought 2 of exact same stove in case they needed it.)

Taylor Myers showing a real time digital display, using bluetooth, of temperatures in his stove.

Developed by ClearStak, this real time digital display shows 154 degree stack temperature, 529 in the firebox and 451 in the catalyst. Estimated efficiencies were in the mid-80s. 

Glenn Miller from the Fairbanks Air District on the left, Rob Rizzo from Mass. Dept. of Energy, and Gaetan Piedalue and Marc Suave from Polytest Labs, a EPA accredited test lab. Ellen Burkhard from NYSERDA is peering into the stove. 

Ben Myren, Tom Butcher and Eric Schaeffer firing up the New Zealand VcV stove.

The Wittus Twinfire's downdraft mechanism, where the fire gets sucked into lower chamber and then passes through catalyts before going back up the stack.

Day 3

Corey Van, one of the young ClearStak staff that helped build the Catalus Ventus. 

Rebecca Trojanowski loads the Catalus Ventus.

The new Testo moisture meter that reads moisture without "pinning" the wood.

Norbert inspects the Condar, placed right below the triple walled pipe.

The tube on the right of black pipe is a Condar, which operates very similarly to a dilution tunnel. Norbert Senf is using it concurrently with the Testo PM analyzer.

A warm up test load made by Ben Myren. This top down burn, with smallest kindling on top, and larger kindling on the bottom is a very efficient way to start fires.

Amanda Aldridge of the EPA talks with Norbert Senf (behind flue pipe) about the Condar analyzer. Rob Rizzo from Mass. Dept. of Energy in upper right.

Electronic controllers that can be put in wood heating systems that were part of Jeff Hallowell's presentation. Harold Garobedian in red jacket on right, and Rafael Sanchez from the EPA behind him.

A new Testo moisture meter that works without pins. It can measure moisture at the center of the wood, not on the edge.

George Wei hangs almost upside down to put a temperature sensor in the top of the flue pipe to measure stack temperature. This is a key data point for determining efficiency.

Day 4                                          

John Ackerly on opening day, welcoming everyone and talking about how automated stoves can solve many problematic issues issues that come with widespread wood burning.

From the left to right - Ellen Burkhard from NYSERDA, Lisa Rector from NESCAUM, Amanda Aldridge from EPA and Mark Knaebe from US Forest Service.

We spent hours in this room, having different presentations every hour, with lots of discussion and debate. Here, Ben Myren is presenting the testing results of the VcV stove.

Brian Gauld of New Zealand, John Pilger of CSIA and Jeff Hallowell of ClearStak.

Team Wittus Twinfire

Gregory Elliiot and Peter Cullen from Wohler, and John Pilger from Chimney Safety Institute of America.

Ingo Hartman, measuring glass temperature on his Twinfire stove.

We managed to find a BYOB restaurant which led to more red wine consumption. From left - Rod Tinnemore, Dave Misiuk, Amanda Aldridge, John Ackerly, Norbert Senf, Ellen Burkhard and LIsa Rector.

Final Day

The Catalus Ventus shows incredible hot catalyst temps compared to the both the stack and the firebox. This was during start up, when it was emitting maximum smoke, but between the catalyst, the fabric filter, virtually no smoke came out the stack.

Ivana Sirovica, a Research Fellow from Alliance for Green Heat, and Ben Myren, as Ben finished the final test of the week.

Tom Butcher using the Wohler particulate analyzer on the VcV stove. Because we used wood that was often above 25% moisture content, we had to deal with more moisture in our testing instruments.

Underneath the VcV stove is where the magic happens, and mechanical valves automatically close or open the primary or secondary air, depending on what the stove needs to maintain a clean and efficient burn. THis stove maintained a steady low burn rate with beautiful swirling flames in the upper part of the chamber.

Ben Myren shows how his thermocouples could read the temperature in 10 spots of the stove at all times. The top of the flue could be 250, when the air entering the catalyst was nearly 800, and 1300 in the firebox.

Brian Gauld, the owner of the VcV travelled from New Zealand, where there is also demand for automation that can improve stove performance far more than stoves are likely to perform when operated manually.

         Dr. Phil Hopke of Clarkson University and Mattian Woll of Testo.

Our cord wood was kiln dried and then shrink wrapped so it would maintain a constant moisture content. The wood was far wetter, on average, than wood used in EPA test certifications, which helped us assess how these automated stoves could perform with higher moisture content wood.

Preparation of kindling for the tests.

George Wei and Yussef were two of Brookhavens talented technicians. Both have worked on improving oil combustion systems, outdoor wood boilers and stoves.

The last stove is taken out, and demonstrates the challenge of testing the same day as removing stoves that are still hot!