aQysta - Barsha Pump

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Updated Apr 23, 2019

aQysta - Barsha Pump

The Barsha Pump, is a patented, award-wining water pump which is driven solely by the water flow of streams, rivers or canals. It pumps part of the water to higher grounds without requiring any fuel or electricity and with virtually no maintenance.

http://www.aqysta.com/

Pratap Thapa

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Stage 4: Transition to Scale

aQysta has established initial traction and exported 300 pumps to 18 countries globally. So far, more than 5,000 users are benefiting from the Barsha Pump, which is aQysta’s first commercial product. However, market potential is much great.

Registered as a For-Profit in Netherlands.

Focus Areas:

Agriculture Water Management, Social & Micro Finance, Wind & Water Energy and 3 MoreSEE ALL

Implemented In:

Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nepal and 3 MoreSEE ALL

Countries Implemented In

Employee

Verified Funding

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Problem

Food security is one of the largest global issues with almost one billion people suffering from hunger. Smallholder farmers are often affected themselves even though they account for 70% of global food production. With a growing world population their agricultural productivity needs to increase, despite extreme weather events induced by climate change. Rain-fed farming limits their yield and income as it exposes them to low market prices, due to an oversupply of the seasonal crops they can grow.

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Solution

Access to irrigation is one of the most effective ways to create agricultural resilience as it boosts agricultural productivity by 2 to 5 times, compared to rain-fed farming. The Barsha Pump creates reliable access to irrigation and serves as a tool that enables smallholder farmers to shift from subsistence to commercial farming substantially increasing their economic prosperity as they can grow commercial crops and farm also during the dry season, thus achieving higher prices for their harvest.

Target Beneficiaries

Smallholder farmers are the beneficiaries, as they get access to year-round irrigation at the lowest possible costs, increasing their yields and subsequently their income. Currently, these farmers do not have access to irrigation or are paying high fees for it, despite having potential sources of water nearby. There are two sub-groups: 1. Marginal farmers who are seeking to shift from subsistence to commercial farming 2. Small commercial farmers who are looking to scale up their operations

Mission and Vision

aQysta is on a quest to sustainably provide water for farming. To do so, we are re-investing a majority of our profits back into the business to grow our company and further our mission. To date, aQysta has reached more than 5,000 beneficiaries, with its hydro-pump technology, irrigated more than 200 hectares of land, pumped more than 300 million litres of water and mitigated 100 tons of CO2 in the process.

Innovation Description

The Barsha Pump is driven solely by the water flow of streams, rivers or canals and does not require any fuel or electricity. Hydropower is the most cost-efficient power source for pumping and by harnessing it, the Barsha Pump is capable to provide water 24 hours per day, while featuring high efficiencies. The Barsha Pump is the first hydropowered irrigation pump, which can lift water directly from a flowing water source and it is propelled by a waterwheel, which makes it suitable for use in a wide range of rivers and canals, without the need for infrastructure (e.g. dams). The Barsha Pump operates purely mechanically, with a minimum number of moving parts, as it creates pressure only through the interaction of water and air columns, based on a proven scientific principle. All these aspects make it a simple and robust solution, with virtually no maintenance requirement, even in water sources with a high content of sediments. The waterwheel incorporates a patent pending, integrated spiraling channel which performs the pumping function. This innovation leads to an unprecedented architecture that allows to increase the efficiency of the pumping principle by 50% and for a lighter (therefore portable) product, which is mass producible in a cost-efficient manner, at a standardized quality. The Barsha Pump is designed as an assembly kit, so that it can easily be put together on site without the need for specialized knowledge or tools, which allows to greatly reduce shipping volume.

Competitive Advantage

The Barsha pump is the most versatile hydro-powered pump available on the market, as it does not require any infrastructure to implement and can be directly placed in rivers without the need for an input head. Other hydro- powered pumps (such as RAM pumps), require input head greater than 1 meter to operate which limits the geographic areas of their applicability. The Barsha Pump is cost effective and requires significantly less maintenance and is of much lighter weigh than deviant product architectures. Compared to fossil fuel powered pumps or electric pumps, the Barsha Pump has a slightly larger purchasing price but breaks even within 12-24 months (depending on local energy tariffs). Compared to a solar pump of similar capacity, the Barsha is around half as capital intensive, easier to operate and maintain and not as dependent on daily weather conditions, such as clouds, shadows, etc. Furthermore, it allows to pump water after sun-hours, when water does not evaporate as much.