Source: treehugger.com
Published: February 17, 2014
© Pumpmakers
In an age when many of us have unprecedented and almost instant access to technology and resources, and yet others in the developing world are dying daily because of lack of something basic and simple, such as access to clean drinking water, it should be fairly obvious that there’s something very wrong with the state of human affairs.
And the sad fact is, we already have the technology to begin to alleviate the effects of the water crisis in many areas, even where lack of access to adequate power or fuel keeps water pumps idle, and yet tens of thousands of our fellow humans are still dying every day from water and sanitation related causes.
With some 800 million people around the world suffering from the lack of safe drinking water every day, and an estimated 6 to 8 million people dying from water and sanitation related diseases, many of them young children, it’s high time for a sustainable water pumping solution, such as the one developed by Pumpmakers.
Pumpmakers developed their NSP Solar Pump in response to the global water crisis, and this maintenance-free solar pump platform promises to be a game-changer, because it’s not only fully solar-powered, but is also said to be inexpensive and can be manufactured locally.
The NSP Solar Pump system can be used to replace other water pumps which are already installed, whether they’re hand-pumps, diesel generator-powered pumps, or conventional windmill pumps, and offers a range of benefits that beat other alternatives hands-down.
The NSP Solar Pump
- incurs no running costs and uses renewable solar energy to easily pump water out of water wells;
- efficiently pumps up to a depth of 100m / 300ft, even on cloudy days;
- has an optional hand pump which allows water to be pumped at night;
- requires NO maintenance at all (high-quality maintenance-free materials make this possible);
- is salt water resistant to avoid corrosion;
- is affordable and can be manufactured all over the world to foster local economic development;
- can easily be assembled locally, using local skills and parts.
This solar pumping platform also features another big advantage over traditional pumps, because Pumpmakers wants to give everyone access to their easy-to-use DIY instructions and construction plans, so that anyone from private individuals to NGOs to entrepreneurs can build and install these solar pumps wherever they’re needed.
One of the Pumpmakers’ NSP Solar Pumps has been in place in a remote village in Mozambique since 2012, and it delivers 5000 liters of water each day from a well depth of 80 meters, which supplies the 800 villagers with a source of clean safe drinking water.
There is a catch to this DIY solar pump, however, as Pumpmakers needs some financial backing to fully launch their innovative water pumping platform, and they’ve turned to crowdfunding to raise that money. The Pumpmakers Indiegogo campaign seeks to raise $300,000 to “bring water & work to wherever it’s needed!”, and is working to fully develop an international platform for the DIY plans and support system.
Once the campaign goal is reached, the Pumpmakers Platform will allow just about anyone to be able to build their own NSP Solar Pump by following the DIY construction plans and videos, or to build a business around this solar pump.
According to Austrian well builder Dietmar Stuck, the founder of Pumpmakers, the current system costs about 8,000 to 10,000 euros, depending on the depth of the well, but Stuck expects the cost to drop up to 60% if the Pumpmakers platform can get launched and can begin the serial production of the components.