This device can heat water using just the power of the sun...
and it only takes about 20 minutes to set up.
So this is the world's first self-assembled or flat packable solar thermal collector.
In some of the hottest parts of the world it can be hard to find hot water.
So a lot of people don't think that people in a sunny, warm climate have any
hot water needs but actually what you find is that people don't want to have a shower because they
don't have access to hot water. So that obviously impacts hygiene levels,
also cleaning dishes and also laundering clothes.
People often use fuels such as gas or charcoal to heat water.
So what we really want to do is shift that dependence away from using these
environmentally unfriendly solutions. Also solutions which aren't very good
for your health and utilise a really clean resource of energy.
Solar thermal collectors that use the sun to heat water are not new...
but they can be heavy and expensive.
So, at a small factory in Dundee in Scotland...
Faisal has developed a cheaper and simpler alternative.
So the idea is really simple. Once it's assembled
the solar coil inside the prism actually turns into a heat trap and then what we do
is we circulate cold water through the bottom of the collector,
transfer our water through the coil and it
transfers that heat to the water. And so by the time you get to the top
you get hot water coming purely from the sun.
it works well in northern Europe...
but even better near the equator.
In Rwanda, Faisal has set up a pilot project to test these kits.
Almost 60 of them have been installed at five sites...
including on Odax's roof.
Before this, he used a kettle to heat water.
The system is working perfectly. I am getting warm water, like 50 degrees celsius.
His family of six can now have hot showers every day...
and he reckons it saves him $10 a month on his bills.
I'm saving money, I'm saving time, I'm saving the planet.
The plan is to make these kits in Africa and sell them for $100 each.
The target market is middle-income homes...
because you need an existing water system to connect the kits with.
Faisal is also designing cheaper kits that use gravity to supply water...
so they could be used in homes not connected to a water system.
My hope for the future is if we're
able to unlock the potential of solar energy we can drastically improve
quality of life for millions of people.
We can obviously make significant reductions in global carbon emissions as well.