Evaptainers

Updated Apr 18, 2019

Evaptainers

Evaptainers creates low-cost mobile refrigerators that run on water designed for low income families who live off grid or cannot afford a conventional refrigerator.

http://www.evaptainers.com/

The innovation has no owner

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Stage 3: Proof of Concept

Registered in United States.

Focus Areas:

Agriculture, Energy, Housing and Infrastructure and 4 MoreSEE ALL

Implemented In:

Morocco

Country Implemented In

Verified Funding

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Problem

In developing countries, refrigeration can be expensive and inaccessible. Lack of refrigeration is one of the causes of high spoilage rates, something which is financially devastating for the rural poor. It deprives families of hard-earned money, and lastly, can lead to long term health and nutrition problems. The UN estimates post-harvest losses as high as 45% for fruits/vegetables, with a total loss of $4 billion dollars in Africa annually.

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Solution

Our company has developed a low-cost, solution for food preservation. Using a specialized synthetic fabric, we harness the phenomenon of evaporative cooling to preserve fruits and vegetables stored inside without using any electricity at all. Our first product, the “EV-8”, is a lightweight and collapsible evaporative cooler. It is the world’s first commercializable “zero-energy” refrigeration device, ideal for low-income, off-grid areas.

Target Beneficiaries

Our target market is people who live in rural areas with limited access to electricity. These people may be connected to the grid, but may have little to no electricity or can be expensive to use a conventional fridge. From what we’ve seen, these people are already trying to solve the problem of spoilage the best they can. Most likely, families just let the food spoil and then are forced to make additional trips to the souk to replenish their supplies.

Mission and Vision

Our main objective is to deploy our solution to families that live in rural areas with little to no access to electricity. These people may be connected to the grid, but electricity may be intermittent or too expensive to justify using a conventional refrigerator. Others may have no electricity at all.

Innovation Description

We came up with the Evaptainer, a lightweight, portable cooling unit that triples the shelf life of fruits and vegetables. This solution would help prevent off-grid population from losing money and precious food. Evaptainers, mobile and modular evaporative coolers, are the world's first mobile zero-energy refrigeration systems (cooling systems that require no external electricity) that are ideal for low-income, off-grid areas. Evaporative cooling as a technique has been employed successfully for centuries in products like the Pot-in-Pot refrigerator or Coolgardie safe. Proven to be effective for cooling at the point of production, these devices have been known to prolong the shelf-life of most fruits and vegetables. Using state-of-the art materials and improved design, we’ve created a more effective and scalable clean energy refrigeration solution, enabling the cold chain to reach farther than ever before.

Competitive Advantage

Our unique value proposition is definitely our price point. While other alternative-refrigeration technologies - Promethean Power, SunDanzer, SunChill, Coolify - can cost thousands of dollars to build and install, our units are small, portable and will retail between US$25 and US$35, making them affordable even at the smallholder farmer level. Furthermore, the Evaptainer EV-8 is designed to be flat-packed and light-weight, allowing for easy transport worldwide.