DD Solar

Reliable cooling solutions are essential for a rural economy, whether in enabling farmers to preserve agricultural and dairy produce and control prices or provide storage for human and animal vaccine, and other medicines. However, in large parts of rural India, the absence of grid connectivity or weak grid conditions limit the usability of conventional cooling and refrigerating systems. Fisheries on the western coast of India, for example, have to sell off their perishable fish quickly in the absence of temperature-controlled storage, thereby fetching them low returns. Crushed ice insulated in polystyrene foam boxes serves as the only prevalent cooling medium. However, procuring ice might mean an arduous daily routine for fisherwomen of venturing out far and queuing up for long at ice plants or local ice distributors.

The story is roughly the same for women dairy producers in Rajasthan. Long power cuts through the day put local dairy products kept in conventional refrigerators at the risk of spoilage, leading to significant losses for micro-entrepreneurs. For the same reason, petty shop owners in far-flung villages across India cannot keep and sell dairy products and other perishable items.

Reliable refrigeration is a necessity not only for ensuring preservation of perishable food items, but also for providing a temperature-controlled environment for storing vaccines and other sensitive medicines in primary health centres, a dire necessity in remote corners of the country. Since vaccines need to be stored at a sustained temperature range of 2 degrees to 8 degrees C, continuous refrigeration is an imperative, especially in times of recurrent pandemics.

DD Solar’s flagship product is the solar DC refrigerator with capacities ranging from 100 L to 350 L ideally suited for micro-enterprises and farm producers of milk, fruits and vegetables, fishery, meat and poultry. Currently, it is getting the refrigerators manufactured by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in China, while assembling the product in India, with supply from India solar panel manufacturers. The company aspires to shift manufacturing to India, so as to cater for African markets, besides India. It is looking at ways to upscale its business by increasingly focusing on business-to-business (B2B) models, which in turn would make it feasible to defray its fixed costs over a larger number of units. Since DD Solar’s refrigerator comes with a high upfront cost while ensuring savings on power costs throughout its useful life, the company’s business model also involves financing the product in instalments. The company is integrating pay-as-you-go (PAYG) technology that would offer flexible payment options for customers in both India and Africa as an additional risk mitigation tool for financiers.