One year clean water

What began as a vague idea at the end of 2021 was implemented in 2022/2023 and put into production in October 2023: Clean drinking water for Ebonyi State.
We have reported regularly on this challenging and extensive measure. Here is a brief review after one year of operation.

Planning, construction and commissioning: Due to the time constraints, the planning was completed within eight weeks. This was a very ambitious task, as we had to design a large photovoltaic system and the bottling hall, develop an operating process and a detailed schedule and cost plan. As it turned out later, however, that was the easiest part of the project. Apart from the technical installation of the PV system, everything went almost smoothly.

Test and go-live: The first challenges arose during the test phase and the start of production. Difficulty finding reliable staff, technical problems with the PV system due to a lack of specialist knowledge on site, procurement of materials, customer acquisition. With hard work, luck and skill, we were able to start production in October 2023.

Production October 2023 till March 2024: By far the most difficult phase with new challenges almost every day, significant effort but also often frayed nerves. Bad packaging material, price problems with the water union, rising inflation with high diesel prices for the trucks, accidents, technical defects in the trucks due to bad roads, demands from staff for more money (even though we pay better than other companies), blackmail during deliveries, lack of transport capacity. Just to name some of the issues.
We were at times at a loss as to whether we should expand or reduce production. We decided to buy more trucks to keep production and sales at a high level. But the situation in February/March was borderline.

Production April till September 2024: Even though the water was literally “ripped out of our hands” during the dry season, we were happy when the rainy season came, and the production volume could be reduced in order to “breathe deeply” and defuse structural issues.

We are proud and grateful for the result and hope that we can continue to make many people happy at this level in the years to come. Many thanks and great recognition to the entire project team in Germany and Nigeria.