A BRAND new solar fridge will help save India’s food industry billions of dollars.
The SolerCool project will be used to transport and store valuable harvests previously would have been destroyed by the harsh Asian climate.
Despite being the second largest food producer in the world, a staggering 40% of India’s harvest is lost because the country’s storage and transport is not good enough.
And as India’s food production industry is worth a huge $180 billion, serious amounts of money are being lost, never mind the amount of people who are suffering from not having enough food to ear.
However, the ground breaking SolerCool fridge, invented by a team at Ohio’s University of Cincinnati, could help end this.
The size of a large garden shed, it is big enough for an individual farmer to store his produce, but small enough to transport.
It is powered by eight solar PV panels, and a battery system enables it to keep whatever is inside it cool during both night and day, helping farmers save their precious stock, money and lives.
However, it is not all good news; currently each unit costs $5,000 dollars, a price far too high for the average Indian farmer.
But Dr. Reyazat, an Adjunct professor in the University of Cincinnati’s engineering school said: “At the moment the price means that several farms would have to pool resources and share one unit.
“We are very price-conscious and are looking at ways to bring the price down to really help the poorest of the poor increase their earning potential.”
He suggested one possibility is to manufacture some smaller units for farmers with just a few acres.
