Loowatt: Value Generating Waterless Toilet Systems in Madagascar
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Founding Story
Fernanda
Costa
Loowatt Ltd
, WND, London
, AN, Antananarivo
18-34
Female
1‐5 years
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Operating for 1‐5 years
Access to financing, Access to supply chains, Access to technology, Access to economic opportunity.
In 2011, after being awarded a Grand Challenges Explorations Phase 1 Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Loowatt set out to implement a pilot system in Antananarivo, Madagascar. This process began with a thorough examination of the local landscape, market segmentation, and the development of a system model to maximize value in this context. We are now implementing a pilot system that will be operational in October 2012.
This work is being done in collaboration with Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor in Madagascar, who have helped us reach a broad range of local stakeholders, from community councils to national ministries, to build awareness about waste-to-energy systems.
Our team includes a rapidly growing number of Malagasy employees.
With the pilot system running, we’ll require 8-12 months of information gathering and system refinement to start scaling effectively. Our focus will be (1) to gather feedback to make incremental improvements to the existing system, (2) to collect data on system commodity generation, (3) to further improve our model, and (4) to explore methods for scaling.
Each Energy Unit will create a small business, 50 toilet users, and over 100 energy customers. The Compost Factory process generates 25-50 kg of fertilizer per Energy Unit per day. In 3 years we aim to have 10,000 Energy Units on the ground, improving the lives and livelihoods of over 2 million people.
Successful implementation of the pilot system, incremental improvements and data collection
Gather user feedback on energy unit (toilet and digester)
Make incremental improvements to system components (toilet, digester, compost site)
Develop marketing strategy for sale of energy and fertilizer
Completion of the pilot stage, data analysis, system model improvements and initial scaling of units
Analyze pilot system data and system model input
Complete detailed plan to scale Loowatt system
Begin implementation of scaling plan with the aim of providing improved sanitation to more than 300 people
In Madagascar, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor’s support has enabled us to rapidly understand and access local people, systems and infrastructure providers. We intend to continue this relationship as we work toward scaling systems there.
Through the Gates Foundation’s Water and Sanitation grantee network, we are now in the process of forming further collaborations with groups that share common interests in sanitation, anaerobic digestion, and distributive system developments.
The InnovationRCA incubator offers us ongoing business support.
The development of an alternative form of sanitation is a cross-disciplinary challenge; we value collaboration and understand that research, both scientific and market-based is important to create a successful result.
Mentoring from experts in business with experience in refining strategies for scaling would be welcome.