Akash Ganga is a company based in India which has developed a product to create clean drinking water from air. I blogged about the founder earlier .

Akash Ganga in Hindi translates to the “the perrenial river Ganga from the sky”. Very apt.

I admire the intention behind it and I think it is a great product innovation coming out of India. Now that they have launched a new website with their productI want to figure out their strategy.

Their website and news articles suggest that they are going for the home and office market as a fresh water solution. Is this the right strategy?

It will be interesting to check out the economics.

First, they provide a comparison with reverse osmosis. I think number 4 should be the other way round.

S. No
Criteria
RO
AME
1
Durability
Less, because with increasing use, the ground water TDS load on the RO plant increases, till the membranes break-down.
More, because it does not use ground water, but uses only air. Much longer life than RO plants.
2
Effectiveness in ensuring purity of water
Yes, but depends upon frequent changes of filter membranes. Over time its effectiveness declines.
Yes, and remains so for ever, because its effectiveness is independent of any component of the machine. Effectiveness never declines.
3
Effluent water
Yes, and effluent ratio keeps rising as ground water level is depleted
None at all
4
Short run costs per liter of potable water
Lower. Operating costs are lower as are capital costs
Higher on both counts.
5
Long run costs per liter of potable water
Possibly very high. In the long run (i.e. after 6 years) the RO plant might have to be abandoned due to excessive TDS in ground water leading to frequent collapse of membranes.
Very low, because atmospheric water quality is always very high and stable.
6
Environmental resource depletion
Certainly very high. RO often uses up nearly 2.5 liters of ground water to obtain 1.0 liter of potable water. High rate of depletion of ground water.
None at all. Generation of water vapor in the atmosphere is the only perennial source of water.
7
Microbial presence
Yes if membranes are inefficient; water might need UV treatment
Nil

This may not be the right comparison as they both have their uses. Also, most reverse osmosis plants function from sea water and not ground water.

The market for Akash Ganga is different and it works only under some specific circumstances in terms of high humidity, temparature and continous energy.

Their basic product – AS-650 – 40 liters/day – requires a relative humidity of 80% and temparature of 90 Faranheit consuming 750 watts of power per hour and takes 24hrs to produce 40 litres.

Let’s calculate the cost of running this product.

Appliance
 Watts x Hours per Day x Days per Year ÷ Convert to kWh KwH Per Litre kWh Rate = Cost per Litre
Akash Ganga 750 x 24 x 1 ÷ 1,000 40/18=2.22 Rs 5.5 = Rs. 12.2

It takes about 2.22kwH to generate 1 litre of water and costs about Rs12.2 a litre. Average cost of electricty comes from here .

If we add the capital cost and running costs, it may not be an economical alternative in a home.

Next, what about the right conditions for maximum efficiency. It works I think at 50% relative humidity too but provides the maximum output at 80%.

If we look at today’s map of India there are not many places where this product will provide the maximum efficiency.

(Source: Intellicast )

To really take this forward they need to predict the relative humidity in the various cities in India. A journal article like “Prediction of monthly-mean hourly relative humidity, ambient temperature, and wind velocity for India” could be a good start.

Then combined with temperature averages we can narrow down to a possible list of places.

For Bombay these are the following averages for decades.

Unit Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Average temperature
over 21 years		 °F 80 75 77 80 84 86 84 82 82 82 84 80 78
Average high temperature
over 21 years		 °F 87 84 86 89 89 91 87 84 84 86 89 89 87
Average morning relative humidity
over 19 years		 % 82 75 73 79 84 81 84 88 89 91 86 75 73
Average evening relative humidity
over 18 years		 % 58 42 41 48 57 61 72 80 81 74 58 44 39

Add to this the availability of power. There is a 14% shortage of power in India in general due to subsidized power for farmers.

Once locations are filtered through this constraints then market scenarios need to be looked at.

Are homes the best place for this?

I think there needs to be a better strategy in place if this product needs to succeed.