Sunlit Future has developed a solar-powered Ice-cream freezer in India

Sunlit Future is an integrated service provider that brings high quality renewable energy applications and solutions to both rural and urban India. They assist with building capacities for design, procurement, integration, management, installation and maintenance of renewable energy applications and services. Based in Auroville International Township in South India, Sunlit Future facilitates research in alternative technologies.  

The key team members of Sunlit Future have been actively involved in the field of solar energy over the past 12 years building trust and credibility. They have designed the prototype for a solar-powered ice cream cart. Sunlit Future aims at fusing solar energy technologies into the daily lifestyle of urban and rural India to effectuate an environmental and social impact.

Sunlit Future volunteers began tinkering with the idea about two years ago on assembling a DC deep freezer that could run on solar power. Among those who worked on the project they called Sunice were Rolland, Debo, Tejaswani and Prasun Shah.  

From the drawing board to actual design, it took about two years as the team assembled a mobile cart from a German-make 166 litre DC refrigerator on solar power and an improvised tricycle with a solar panel for a roof. “The initial idea was to develop a mobile vaccine storage vehicle that could deliver vaccines to the rural and remote areas. The same principle can be applied for a vaccine cart,” says Rishi, co-founder of Sunlit Future.

A view of the solar-powered freezer designed at Auroville.  Image credit: Special Arrangement    

The biggest challenge was to make a mobile version of the refrigerator. The first model of the tricycle chassis, fridge, solar panel and battery was too heavy to be lugged around. The team led by Rolland went about redesigning the model, using more of aluminium and reworking the gear ratio.  

“In hindsight, the tricycle chassis wasn’t such a good idea as we ended up redoing almost 80 per cent of the chassis,” says Mr. Rishi. About two months back, the prototype emerged successfully out of tests which established that the cart once powered during the day could keep ice cream fresh and frozen overnight and beyond. The cart could maintain autonomy with a temperature between minus 10 and minus 20 degrees for up to 48 hours once it was charged up during the day, said Om, volunteer at Sunlit Future.  

For Sunlit Future, which is engaged in providing life-changing interventions such as providing solar water pumps to far-flung hamlets in Majhora (Madhya Pradesh) or Turla (Odisha), the solar powered ice cart began as a fun-filled research project.  

Sunlit Future aims at fusing solar energy technologies into the daily lifestyle of urban and rural India with positive environmental and social impact through solar pump systems, water heaters, public lights, on-grid and off-grid power systems. (Source: TheHindu)   Explore further in Sunlitfuture