Diesel-Free Energy for India’s Milk Farms
Learn more about White’s six-year-long journey to help change
the economics of rural villages through off-grid refrigeration in
his TEDx Talk from July, then check out our Bloomberg West
segment on Promethean Power.
EDITOR’S PICK: What if you had to boil your milk every time you wanted a bowl of cereal?
While American farmers have the luxury of reliable, 24-hour refrigeration systems, farmers in India find it virtually impossible to get milk to the market without dangerous levels of bacteria due to the country’s unreliable power source. As a result, families are forced to boil their milk before drinking it, which diminishes its nutritional value. Sam White and Sorin Grama, founders of Promethean Power, are focused on developing a diesel-free solution to help farmers in off-grid areas chill their milk.
Originally Submitted June 18, 2012
Promethean has developed a thermal energy storage platform that eliminates diesel generators for cold-storage applications in rural India. Thermal energy is stored using proprietary phase-change materials encapsulated in a modular container, essentially a new type of battery that stores cold liquid rather than electrical energy. This thermal battery pack stores and releases large amounts of energy quickly to cool agricultural products immediately, thereby preserving freshness. We have a repeat customer with India’s largest private dairy.