Enhance ReadabilityOn an otherwise reasonable evening, more than 1,000 people packed an auditorium in Boulder, Colorado, for the culmination of the 2011 Unreasonable Institute. They came to see 27 ventures present their solutions to some of the world’s greatest challenges.
Alissa Johnson, Co-Founder of CalSolAgua, shares how her venture is bringing heated water solutions to developing countries while cutting customers’ monthly electricity bills by a third.
CalSolAgua (CSA) designed a simple, yet patentable, low cost solar water heating system capable of reducing energy costs and carbon emissions for households in developing countries. Through detailed design work and four generations of prototyping, our team developed a solar water heater that can retail for one-third of the price of competing water tank heaters and less than one-eighth the cost of existing solar water heaters. Retailing at $100 at full production, our product can reach 120 million middle class households globally. The CalSolAgua water heater will reduce carbon emissions by over 90 million tons, equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the roads.
