AFRICA – Canadian companies Rainmaker Worldwide and Carlaw Group have partnered to bring a novel solution in Africa that will produce water from the air for the benefit of the continent’s arid and semi-arid region.
According to a report by AFrik21, the solution will be deployed in several African countries including Kenya, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.
The joint venture will establish a subsidiary in Africa where Rainmaker which specialises in water production will own a 51% stake and Carlow- a private equity fund- will control the remaining 49% stake.
The joint venture will then implement water as a service (WaaS) solutions through agreements signed with actors in the mining and construction sectors; as well as “through a water bottling operation using Rainmaker’s hybrid energy Air-to-Water solutions”.
The two companies project a turnover of US$50 million per year after the deployment of the airborne water production systems in the four selected countries in West and East Africa.
According to Rainmaker, the future joint venture will set up an urban initiative to work closely with the private sector and global humanitarian organisations to identify areas of severe water scarcity and then define appropriate and innovative solutions.
“By using air-water units, the water produced is ecologically and socially sustainable, which means that it is free of chemicals and has a zero or low carbon footprint.”
Rainmaker World Wide
Through the production of water from the air, Carlaw Group and Rainmaker Worldwide want to improve access to safe drinking water in Africa.
According to the United Nations (UN), only one person in four has access to a safe source of drinking water on the African continent.
In Africa south of the Sahara, where the situation is more critical, only 24% of the population has access to this essential service.
The air-to-water solutions address this problem by providing freestanding water factory units for the home or office and large, industrial-sized water units using a modular design that can produce thousands of liters of water each day.
Unlike other methods, this form of creating water is sustainable as it does not deplete diminishing ground water reserves and neither is it negatively impacted by climate change.
Water also becomes cost effective since logistics, waste management and transportation costs are removed making it cheaper than other sources of drinking water.
The water produced also starts out cleaner as it comes from the vapor / humidity in the air that we breathe rather than dirty, contaminated ground water that needs to be purified.
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