Project Details
Company Maturity Level
Grassroots and Rural Innovative Development Pvt Ltd : Empowering Lives through Solar RO Technology
G.R.I.D. Pvt Ltd is a mission-driven social enterprise that works towards providing low-cost distributed energy solutions to rural areas in South and South East Asia. The organization is reshaping the application of microgrid technology to tackle the issues of energy poverty, water insecurity, access to education and healthcare. G.R.I.D. believes in the philosophy of treating solar energy as a platform on which various other essential services can be made available and thereby generates a social impact. It integrates technology, financial modeling, and O&M practices to create viable and sustainable models for its solutions. Through projects such as Solar Microgrids, Solar RO systems, Solar Lanterns and Solar Home Systems, G.R.I.D., is bringing amenities to rural areas with an aim to improve the quality of life.
In its most revolutionary developmental intervention till date, G.R.I.D. has successfully brought affordable and accessible potable water to villages in rural India through its Solar RO technology and has impacted thousands of lives.
What problem are you trying to solve? Who has this problem?
There are around 168 million households in India that do not have access to treated drinking water. Out of these, 138 million households are in rural areas alone. The lack of access to safe drinking water has led to severe health impacts in rural India. This calls for an immediate attention towards the issue of potable water.
In the wake of the drinking water supply shortage, people in rural areas are compelled to take recourse to ground water that is highly unfit for drinking and often only available at distances. Filtration is not feasible due to economic barriers, lack of energy access, or simply because of lack of awareness. It has become the trademark of the Indian rural landscape to see women carrying water on their heads from distant wells to their homes. These factors contribute to a compound problem and have a multifaceted impact on society ranging from adverse health effects and water insecurity to time poverty and gender disparity.
Value Proposition
To address the issue of prevalent water insecurity G.R.I.D. Pvt Ltd. came up with the innovative Solar RO technology. This technology consists of a solar microgrid which powers a commercial scale RO (Reverse Osmosis) system to purify water for the entire village. Despite the maturity of RO technology, it is not prevalent in rural India predominantly due to lack of energy access. Moreover, the largest cost associated with the operation of an RO system is the cost of electricity. G.R.I.D. Pvt. Ltd. has optimized this process by using solar microgrids, thereby circumventing the prevalent lack of energy access in rural areas, and bringing down the operational cost by capitalizing on the low solar LCOE in India.
Solar RO technology. The pilot of Solar RO technology has ... More
Access to clean drinking water
• Improved health indicators and quality of life in villages
• Reduced time poverty in women
• Equal participation of men in managing water resource
Varun Duggal, Advisory-Innovation
· Microgrid Design, Solar PV System Simulation
Dhriti Pande, Manager-Innovative Solutions
· Solar PV System Design, Financial Modeling
Prachi Moghe, Manager-Energy Access
· Needs Assessment, Social Impacts Assessment
Manik Jolly, Founder and CEO
· Energy Access & Security, Rural Electrification, Solar Microgrids, Sustainable Development, Rural Development
Advisors
Investors
PROJECT SUMMARY
Organization Name
Grassroots and Rural Innovative Development Pvt Ltd
Legal Classification
Private Company
Country
India
Sector
Energy Access, Renewable Energy
Fund Raising Status
Inactive
Proposed Investment
USD 500,000 - Debt
USD 5,000,000 - Equity
Technology
Last Update
October 18, 2017
Solar RO technology
The pilot of Solar RO technology has been implemented in village Ugalan, Haryana in May 2017. This system was developed to provide affordable and clean drinking water to 1000 homes every day. The plant provides 20,000 Liters of clean water a day at the cost of 0.05$/Liter. This system uses a 10kW Solar PV system and a 2400Ah battery bank, which is capable of running the plant for 10 hours a day, and producing 2000 Liters of potable water every hour. This initiative has seen a high rate of adoption attributed to the high demand for drinking water, and the mass sensitization that followed the availability of affordable and potable water in Ugalan. Following the success of this endeavor, G.R.I.D. Pvt Ltd. is now in the process of scaling up this technology and maximizing its impact.