Hot box employs our unique patented solar heat collector technology, which allows solar heat to be collected at high temperature throughout the year and even under overcast skies. Which means that worldwide, where gas is currently burnt to give heating, the gas consumption can be drastically reduced by using our technology. These collectors can be installed on roofs or ground mounted and the heat stored for controllable use.
Soaring gas and electricity prices have made direct solar thermal heat not just a solution for climate change but also a heat source more economically viable and dependable than fossil fuel derived heat.
A good study of how on-farm pre-cooling impacts on income and carbon emissions are set out in the Kinnow study carried out by Carrier. The National Centre for Cold Chain Development in India calculated that if food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses after USA and China. Through methane emissions during rotting and wasted agricultural and transport emissions.
Additionally, the national balance of payments is deeply affected by cold chain efficiency. Currently India, for instance, only exports 2% of its agricultural produce while wasting 48%. If that 48% were reduced, then the 2% could increase by order of magnitude.
This effect can be summed up as the five-fold profit multiplier:
Much better quality food gets to the customer as only pre-chilled food can be transported by refrigerated truck. The farmer thus gets a better
The farmers can store the crop and produce high added value processed product from the raw produce. To give an example, many farmers sell their produce straight from the field and then go to the city during the dry season to get low-paid work. This time could be spent on-farm, adding value.
Food can be stored much longer and thus be sold outside the low-price window at the height of the harvesting season.
Less in-transit loss for distributors, removing the cost of sorting bad food from good, reducing the number of trips needed and associated emissions.
Farmers can preserve more of the food that they produce.
Few electrical parts and very little electrical power are needed.
Running costs are very low.
It’s long lasting & has very low maintenance.
It is modular, so it adapts to different requirements.
Use cases 01
Our focus in agricultural pre-cooling / on-farm cooling has been in India, where we have carried out market research and begun to explore the market with our Indian partner, Mamata Group.
The approach to the market will be to address first crops that have the lowest water density and the highest value, to maximise the benefit to the farmer. We, therefore, expect cut flowers to be the first market that we approach. Flowers are grown for essences and pharmaceuticals, a multi-billion dollar market.
Other crops such as mushrooms, broccoli, capsicum and others can then be approached.
Use cases 02
Dairy is another agricultural sector, where the value proposition is particularly strong, saving wastage, increasing milk quality and reducing the collection frequency from twice daily to once daily.
In India particularly we expect great improvement for both the farmer (who can almost double his income by selling only good milk) and the aggregators (the Dairy industry milk collectors or intermediaries) because their trip will now be almost twice as effective.
