Ecofrost - Solar powered portable cold room- enabled market linkage platform
Ecofrost
Stage of adaption :
Post Harvest Stage
TECHNOLOGY BRIEF
Ecozen Offers portable solar powered on-farm cold rooms for pre-cooling & staging of perishables with IoT based cooling solutions to enable better post-harvest management
● Heat exchanger design of a thermal storage unit for efficient heat transfer
● Control systems design for effective control of room temperature with assimilation of direct and thermal storage based cooling
● Control systems for operation of motor at high frequencies at any condensing and evaporating temperature without exceeding motor current limit
● MPPT algorithm for efficient harness of solar power
● Android application for monitoring and ticketing for B2B clients
● Design of lean supporting structure to enable portability
● Remote monitoring/control of unit
● Machine learning based algorithms and control system to diagnose, predict and solve issues effectively, remotely
● Web app to monitor and reporting of system’s performance to customers and internally
● Ticketing portal to automatically (based on algorithms) and manually register issues, service scheduling, report generation
● Systems and methods to prolong shelf life
● New heat exchanger technology with low cost polymer based heat exchanger
● Use of innovation for effective heat transfer to room being cooled for absolute controllability
● A plug-and-play packed with all intelligence to be used for converting any room to a cold room with over 30 hours of back-up
BENEFITS
TECHNOLOGY READINESS
Acquired more than 100 customers
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
IP filed, to be awarded
CERTIFICATION
ISO:9001-2015 and ISO:14001:2015
TARGET CUSTOMERS
Individuals and FPOs growing horticulture products like flowers, fruits and vegetables. Ecofrost provides cooling solutions at the farm gate even for locations where 24 hours power is an issue. This ensures that farmers do not face product loss post harvesting.
Our product can provide a high variation of temperature and humidity which ensures that majority of horticulture produce can be pre-cooled and stored by the farmers including multiple variety of produce at the same time.
Our units could also be installed in mandis where left over produce can be saved from perishing by keeping inside the cold room overnight thereby reducing losses and fetching a better price on the next day.
SCALABILITY
The product has already been tested on the ground and can be easily scaled across geographies. The product is easy to install and simple to use. Ecofrost is connected via IOT to our servers and we monitor its performance and provide on-ground technical support when required.
As the cold room is portable in nature, it could be shifted to different farmers in the same year corresponding to their harvest cycle. This ensures higher utilisation of the asset.
LIMITATIONS
The purchase price of the asset is Rs 15.1 lacs for 5 Metric ton capacity. This is a limiting factor for farmers and FPOs from buying the unit. There is a Central Government back ended subsidy of 35% but a bank loan is mandatory for the same and it is difficult for farmers to avail a loan of this size.
Thus, if a front ended subsidy can be provided, then it would become accessible to a much larger number of farmers and FPOs.
TECHNOLOGY COST
25000-30000 Rs monthly lease rental with assured commodity buyback
10-15 Lacs depending upon the size and capacity
SOCIAL IMPACT
Minimizing wastage of fruits, vegetables & flowers due to improper storage
• Help farmers realize better pricing for their produce by storing and selling at the right time
• The unique battery-less back-up system entails virtually zero maintenance and running costs
• Solar power ensures that farmer need not to worry about monthly electricity charges
● Market linkage platform helps them with minimum price assurance, payment guarantee, grading – packaging guidance and buyer connect
Having this product on the farm can ensure doubling of farmer income by:
1. Reducing post-harvest losses
2. Receiving better prices and repeat orders from customers as cold storage helps increase shelf life of the produce
3. Ensuring farmer gets better price for his produce as he can time his sale better based on market prices
4. Farmer can pre-cool the produce and sell in farther locations where there are higher prices available for the produce
5. There is minimal power cost to run the unit as it runs on solar
6. Savings in transportation costs as now farmer can accumulate 5 tons of produce in the cold room and send in once batch instead of small quantities
CONTACT
kisanmitr@indiancst.in
TOLL FREE
1800 258 2010
ONLINE HELP DESK
+91 97 429 79 111