Solar Storage Could Save Crops
A new product is set to roll out in India. It’s a food-storage device that uses solar panels to cool produce and preserve crops on their way to market, needed in India where 30 to 40% of the harvest is lost because of the lack of cold-chain facilities to store and transport food.
This sustainable fix in the form of the SolerCool container and a business plan to successfully launch the innovation is possible thanks to University of Cincinnati-industry partnerships.
According to India’s Global Cold Chain Alliance, India is second to China in a food production industry worth $180 billion, but the waste of food due to spoilage leads to a huge shortage.
The new SolerCool venture has been developed as a solar generator that can store energy. Mohsen Rezayat, chief solutions architect at Siemens UGS PLM Software and adjunct professor in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, is primarily working on the engineering of the solar panels in the SimpliCool cube.
“The goal is to have a distribution plan in place by the end of March and a unit tested by June,” Hawkins says.
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