The Next Generation Wood Stove Design Challenge

The Next Generation Wood Stove Design Challenge will be launched later this month and run through the fall of 2013.  We have been building an impressive list of partners to support it, lawyers to make sure we have dotted our “i”s and crossed our “t”s, and, maybe most importantly, reaching out to dozens of university engineering departments and stove manufactures.

Could a wood stove be as efficient as a natural gas furnace?  Could it be as consistently clean as the cleanest pellet stove?  What “smart” features would consumers want in a next generation stove?  What information could a stove provide in a digital screen that would motivate or help the operator burn more efficiently?  Could your stove ever tell you the moisture content of your wood?  Could it tell you when you need to clean your chimney?  Could it power your phone and lights in a blackout?  Is there a market for a wood stove that ties into a solar thermal system? Would any of these features – or others – motivate people to trade in older stoves and buy cleaner, modern ones?  

These are just a few of a long list of questions that we and others have been asking for years.  We hope this Challenge will begin to provide some answers and awaken consumers to the possibility that a new generation of clean burning stoves may be on the horizon.  

We want to thank everyone who has provided input into designing the Challenge so far.  If you have input, please feel free to contact us at info@forgreenheat.org.

Feedback Wanted for Wood Stove Design Challenge

J. P. Baumer's winning design for a competition sponsored by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1763.

The Alliance for Green Heat and Popular Mechanics magazine are launching a Wood Stove Design Challenge this winter and inviting stakeholders to provide input before it is finalized.  We are particularly interested in talking to stove manufacturers, universities, inventors and institutions interested in higher efficiency stoves. 

The Wood Stove Design Challenge seeks to spur innovation in wood stove design.  The Challenge is looking for designs that are affordable for the average American and help burn cleaner and more efficiently in real world conditions.  The Challenge is modeled after the DOE sponsored Solar Decathlon that “blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.”  Unlike the Solar Decathlon, however, the Wood Stove Design Challenge is not restricted to university teams. Everyone is invited to participate.  We expect university engineering departments, for example, to team up with a nearby stove manufacturer or find other sponsors to support them.

Our draft timeline has pre-applications due in December 2012.  A panel of judges will select finalists to bring their prototypes to Washington in the fall of 2013 for a next generation wood stove exhibition that will be open to the public, policymakers and the media.  During the Exhibition, the panel of judges will select the winners.  Winners will receive a cash prize and be profiled in Popular Mechanics magazine.  Partial funding of the Challenge has been provided by the Osprey Foundation and the Ramsay Merriam Fund.

We are very interested in your feedback on this Challenge before all the details are finalized.  For a more detailed 2-page draft announcement of the Challenge, please contact Melissa Bollman at melissa@forgreenheat.org.  Deadline for feedback is Friday, January 20, 2012.