Linking Clean Energy to Affordable Drinking Water Access - India

Linking Clean Energy to Affordable Drinking Water Access is providing affordable, clean drinking water to low-income communities using high-end solar powered water purification, creating employment at all levels of value-chain and developing supply-chains. This activity has set up 12 water vending machines and kiosks using a “pay-as-you-go” model around urban slum communities and rural villages in regions where water is highly contaminated and where grid electricity supplies is erratic or non-existent.

Fast facts:

Presently, this activity services over 10,000 urban and rural families;
Over 50,000 people in slums and rural villages consume the clean water;
Over 40% of the consumers are women and are benefiting from the systems directly or indirectly;
The water purification systems can clean water from 2,400 TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) to 300 TDS, which is an internationally acceptable standard for pure drinking water;
A single mid sized water purification system can mitigate about 28.4 tonnes of greenhouse gases. With 12 systems installed, around 280 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions are mitigated.

The problem

The lack of clean, safe drinking water is a problem in developing India and this paired with erratic monsoons exacerbated by climate change is causing severe water security and clean water access issues.

The solution

A SWAJAL Water Hut (kiosk) is a community sized water purification system, which can be optionally powered by solar. These kiosks are equipped with RFID sensors for smart cards and also accept coins for water payment. The systems are integrated with remote monitoring and management tools to constantly assess water quality and maintenance issues from a central facility. Presently, SWAJAL kiosks service over 10,000 families and over 50,000 people in slums and rural villages consume the clean water. In a survey, this activity was seeing immediate health improvements and a decrease in medical bills. Over time there has been a decrease in school absenteeism and improved productivity amongst women.

Helping the planet

This activity is addressing carbon mitigation by linking clean energy solutions to water access, using energy efficient water purification systems, reducing the use of individual water purification units by encouraging affordable community level clean water service, reducing the consumption of plastic bottles and the use of costly polluting diesel for water transport. The SWAJAL water purifiers not only reduce reliance on the thermal powered grid and diesel energy but also promote reusing water bottles, thereby substantially reducing plastic bottle consumption, energy spent on disposal (burning of plastics) or recycling and wastage. These machines use solar PV, energy recovery, energy minimization and other principals to make systems over 60% more efficient compared to a traditional RO (reverse osmosis) purification system.

Helping people

With increasing complex industrial pollutants and chemicals entering ground and surface water, primitive water treating methods such as boiling or basic filtration are failing to remove heavy metals and chemicals such as arsenic, fluoride, cadmium, etc. The water purification units are helping alleviate water contamination, reducing health related problems, medical expenses and improving the overall productivity of the household. In India, the responsibility of collecting and treating water falls on women and girls. This activity is encouraging women to participate in self-help groups in order to form partnerships and one day become sole owners of the water kiosks. Women are also playing a key role in informing their communities about the health and cost benefits of using the kiosks via word of mouth marketing.

Scaling Up

Access to clean drinking water and constraints on operating water purification systems in the absence of electricity is a serious concern both in urban slums and rural villages. With the success of this activity, further development and wider deployment of the project is possible after tapping into strategic impact investment, commercial borrowing or private equity funds from banks or through micro financing opportunities. This activity plans to scale up and provide solutions that are affordable, accessible and reliable, which means providing a robust technology that is independent from an unreliable grid.