Natasha Wright discusses her team’s solar desalination pilot in India on Global Waters Radio.
Tata Fellow Natasha Wright went on USAID’s Global Waters Radio podcast to talk about the off-grid, solar-powered water desalination system her team is piloting in India.
Wright and her advisor, Assistant Professor Amos Winter, have created a desalination system that uses electrodialysis to remove salt and other contaminants from brackish groundwater. The system is also energy-efficient and can be powered by solar panels, making it a great fit for villages with intermittent or no access to the main grid.
“The prospects for this technology in India are huge – approximately 60% of the land area of India has brackish water underneath,” Wright said in the interview.
Wright and Winter recently conducted a pilot of the system in Jalgaon, India, with their collaborators at Jain Irrigation.
“With a large company like Jain,” Wright said, “we were able to pull together our system quickly working with the specialists they have.”