Page 7 - AW SEPOCT 2019

WORLD NEWS

pumps so that the system can run at all times, even if one scale up, Barnard said.
pump requires maintenance. His team is already working on its next projects, in Haiti’s
Locals pay about a quarter of one cent for every four Isle de la Gonâve and Mombasa, Kenya. Barnard wants
cups (one liter) of water. those facilities to be up and running by the end of the
As sea levels rise, scientists expect salt water to infiltrate year. GivePower is also scouting a site in Colombia for a
more fresh water sources in coastal areas. similar future project.
As GivePower’s first project, the Kiunga facility cost In all of these places, one of GivePower’s major
$500,000 to build and took a month to construct. The challenges is establishing systems for distributing the fresh
organization hopes to generate $100,000 per year from water that the plants create. Barnard hopes local people
the system, and use that to fund facilities in other places. and organizations at each site will volunteer to distribute
Barnard’s goal is to cut the construction cost down to water, and nearby hospitals, schools, or hotels will pay to
$100,000 per plant in the future. take several thousand liters each day. He also hopes some
“We hope that one of these systems funds another business-minded locals will buy the water and resell it in
additional sister system every five years,” he said. other towns.
For now, the funding has come from corporate and He added that the desalination plant has already
private donations, along with a few corporate grants, spurred new economic activity in Kiunga. A group of
including a $250,000 grant from Bank of America last year. women there started a freshwater clothes-washing
In the future, Barnard envisions smaller, modular-style business, Barnard said, and one man fills a tank with the
solar desalination units that would use a single pump water and drives it to nearby communities to sell. AW
and a 15-kilowatt solar grid with three Tesla batteries.
GivePower could combine the systems “like Legos” to

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