Solardew- Providing clean drinking water
“There is a growing demand for clean drinking water in the world. Due to water scarcity, climate change, and industrialization, the water sources we have are becoming increasingly saline and polluted. This is making water purification more complex. Especially on a smaller scale, there aren’t many good solutions yet,meaning at the household level, but also for communities and small businesses that are off-grid and need high quality drinking water,” Alexander van der Kleij says.
That’s why SolarDew is committed to developing a water purification technology that gives back people and business control over their water supply. “It's basically a type of solar panel, but instead of producing electricity, we produce high quality drinkingwater by using the heat of sun – mainly from more complex types of water:seawater and water with high levels of arsenic fluoride or heavy metals, for example,” Alexander explains.
Sunlight and gravity
SolarDew serves a wide and international target group. Alexander: “Because water scarcity is becoming ever more of a problem all over the world, our technology can cater to the needs of many different people, communities, and businesses. It can help out communities in developing countries and rural areas, as well as on the Greek islands. But there are also many other applications for our product:small-scale hydroponics facilities that produce small high value crops can useit, for example, and it is also interesting for rural medical clinics, not onlyfor clean drinking water but also for example for cleaning medical equipment.”
The type of technology that is generally used on a larger scale tends to be complex. “It involves a lot of electronics, high-pressure pumps, and so on. Often, you end up spending more time repairing your equipment than actually producing water. In our case, we don't use pumps or mechanical or electrical components. Ours is a very simple product actually – all you need is a little sunlight and gravity,which makes it so suitable for rural contexts,” according to Alexander.
“We are now in the phase where we are producing our first industrial products. Through these commercial projects we will get valuable feedback from our customers and clients for different use cases. A product like this will continue to evolve over the next couple of years as we get feedback from the market, scaling up production whilst reducing cost and maintaining high quality standards,” he paints a picture of the stage of their development. “As is the case for most hardware startups, technically, we are quite far along, but commercially, you can only really gain traction in the market once you can actually launch theproduct. It remains exciting to see where it will go.”
Slowing down
SolarDew participatedin the 2023 BeStart program. Alexander: “Water is an important theme in the Northern Netherlands. It was of great importance to us to connect more to the network of experts and companies that are present there and that are focusing on the water sector,” he explains.
The program served them well: “Ultimately, half of an excellence program like BeStart is interesting because of what it offers in terms of content, and the other half of its value lies in the other entrepreneurs you meet there and the conversations you have. It is interesting to see how different parties implement their business models. You can learn a lot from it. Also, it's nice that,when you meet every month, you really witness the steps everyone is taking and can have many related insights,” he shares.
Alexander: “Everytime you make progress with your business, participating in an acceleratorprogram like BeStart forces you to reflect. You are taken out of the hustle and bustle of everyday life for a moment, you come into contact with new techniques, people who look at things in a different way, you are confronted with your own assumptions, your business model, that kind of thing. It benefited our company greatly.”
“In a startup, you're always behind schedule, there are always deadlines that need to be met quickly. That means you're mainly focused on that, so it’s important to take the time to maintain helicopter view. BeStart forces you to take that step back, and ultimately your business benefits from it,” he underscores the importance of slowing down often enough.
