Tag: water technology

Clean Future

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Akvo Atmospheric Water Systems has been working since 2016 to design and manufacture a product which would utilize the moisture in the air and condense it to produce fresh drinking water.

With an initial investment of Rs 5 crore, bootstrapped to the founding team, it manufactures its products in West Bengal and has been selling them in the market since May 2018.

The equipment has a refrigeration system and heat exchangers which help achieve right temperatures to form condensate when air is sucked and brought into the system.

The condensate is then collected and dispensed for use, explains Navkaran Singh Bagga, founder and CEO of the company.

The products are designed to run at temperatures ranging from 10-degree Celsius to 60-degree Celsius with humidity factor of 30-80%, making it a viable model to deploy in coastal and hilly areas, especially in tropical countries that are rich in atmospheric moisture content.

The machines are rated for different run times and generation capacities. For example, one model can run for 24 hours and produce 100 liters in ideal condition.

It draws 250Wh of energy per liter of water generated which also reduces the stress on the grid when runs on power generated from localized renewable sources.

One of the early adopters of this product is Indian Oil refinery in Haldia, near Kolkata. The product has helped decentralize water availability on a massive 300-acre area, enabling workers to access drinking water at six locations.

The Madhya Pradesh government has also taken a 1000-litre system to supply water to Hardua Mangarh village in Damoh district.

The company is also expanding to West Asia. Gulf region will be his major focus in the next couple of years.

Currently, the company has a revenue of around Rs 1.5 crore but with an expanding distribution network and new markets in the Gulf, it expects to hit its target of Rs 12 crore in the coming financial year.

Discover the full story behind Akvo’s innovative journey and its groundbreaking technology here.

Berhampur, Odisha

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Brahmapur, also known as Berhampur is a city on the eastern coastline of Ganjam district of the Indian state of Odisha in East India, The municipality was looking at some solution to provide safe drinking water to people at prominent places like bus / train stations.  

Akvo has deployed the world’s first Air to Water ATM to Berhampur in Odisha with plans of deployment of More units nationwide, where local Civic authorities will be able to provide drinking water to the public without having to provide a source of water, thereby increasing reach and decreasing deployment and infrastructure delays.

A Future without Water

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A future without water…? If you think this is rhetoric, let me assure you it is not. It is a definite possibility in a future as near as 2050. That merits the question, what will happen to the human race when there is no water for consumption? And what of the planet and other life forms on it? Let’s try and answer these questions. We shall then talk about the current water crisis the world is plunged in right now and how atmospheric water generators can make a difference. It might sound far-fetched but consider this… Continue reading “A Future without Water”

The Hindu Business Line

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Use of atmospheric water generators picking up slowly
KOLKATA, OCTOBER 9:  With the impact of climate change making ground and surface water scarcer, companies are looking to tap the atmosphere that holds 37.5 million billion gallons of water.

This is higher than the approximately 32.6 million billion gallons of fresh water (the rest locked up in ice-caps and glaciers) present on earth.

The Technology

Mumbai-based WaterMaker (India) Pvt Ltd, Kolkata-based AKVO and Hyderabad-based Skywater Pvt Ltd, for instance, have set up atmospheric water generators (AWG), to condense the moisture in the atmosphere into water. The water is then filtered and purified through several filters, including carbon, and reverse osmosis, and UV sterilisation lights to get rid of impurities and heavy metals to produce pure drinking water.

Lukewarm demand

While the concept is not new globally, particularly in the US, Europe and Middle East, the technology, which works well in coastal areas where humidity is high, is yet to achieve scale in India.

WaterMaker, which is among the first few Indian companies in this segment (commencing operations in 2005), manufacturing AWGs of capacities ranging from 120 litres to 5,000 litres a day, admits that the demand has been lukewarm in India.

Of its total sales of 3,000 units worldwide, only about 50 units have been sold in India till date.

“The scenario is changing slowly and steadily, with people becoming more conscious of the environment,” Meher Bhandara, Director, Waterworks, told BusinessLine. Companies, which were initially focusing on industrial units, are now looking to tap the household segment.

AKVO, a unit of Kolkata-based Trishan Exports Pvt Ltd, which recently entered market, has come up with a prototype for household segment with a model capable of producing 40 litres a day, priced between ₹30,000- 40,000 per unit, Navkaran Singh Bagga, director, AKVO, said.

Cost factor

A senior research scholar at the School of Environmental Studies, Jadavpur University, cautions that the contaminats in atmospheric water could be high, particularly for a country like India, which has a dense population.

“Atmospheric water has to be treated properly as it is loaded with heavy metals such lead, mercury and cadmium among others coming from industrial activity, vehicles, etc,” he said.

This explains the high capital cost of owning such machines.

While an industrial AWG of 1,000 litres a day capacity could cost upwards of ₹1 lakh, a domestic unit with a 40 litres a day capacity costs between ₹30,000-40,000.

This apart, the average cost of electricity consumed for a 40 litres/day machine works out to be close to ₹56 a day or ₹1,680 a month.

A reverse osmosis machine costs in the range of ₹15,000–25,000 and entails an additional annual maintenance cost of ₹3,500-4,000. However, for every litre of pure water produced using RO technology, close to four litres are wasted.

The average cost of a mineral water dispenser works out to be ₹600-700 a month (considering a family of four consumes about 360 litres a month for drinking). The capital cost (one-time cost of acquiring a dispenser) is approximately ₹150.

The success of the AWGs will, therefore, depend upon the pricing and efficacy of the product.

(This article was published on October 10, 2017)
Read the article here: The Hindu Business Line

Ei Samay

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AKVO heralds the dawn of a new era; presents India’s most cost efficient and indigenously manufactured Atmospheric Water Generator, producing purest form of water from thin air.