The Challenge

Due to the high cost of remote refrigeration, India’s dairy industry relies on aggregators to travel village to village to collect dairy farmers’ milk and bring it to the nearest chilling center a few hours’ drive away. This method is problematic for dairy farmers. To stop bacterial activity and preserve its quality, drawn milk must be chilled as soon as possible. However, because farmers’ milk waits for collection in unrefrigerated canisters, by the time aggregators arrive—in hot vehicles with no cooling insulation—up to 30 percent of the produce can spoil, lowering farmers’ already volatile incomes.

The Innovation

Promethean Power Systems is addressing the issue of rural cooling with its new off-grid milk refrigerators powered by efficient, thermal batteries. Promethean’s bulk refrigerators reduce the cost of remote refrigeration by two-thirds, making it financially possible for dairy companies to run local milk collection centers.

The Impact

Promethean-powered milk collection centers eliminate the need for aggregators and have more accurate milk pricing machines—factors that together increase farmers’ incomes by up to 20 percent. The company has impacted over 40,000 dairy farmers to date.

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