Whalter

Description:

Problem and Trends:

For many years, we heard about the danger of climate change, and the importance of energy efficiency. Many organizations and institutions have already proposed some sustainable solutions, for instance: solar panels, electric cars, reduce gasoline, etc. But we rarely focus on one particular problem, which is the most important: water consumption. In fact, water needs increase significantly due to many factors, and the only way to satisfy the needs is to control our water consumption. In the industry, we lose more than 3 trillion liters per year, because of water leaks. And most importantly, more than 80% of water use is consumed by agriculture. We face serious shortage of water in agriculture. Global population has been increasing year by year and also global warming causes unstable climate. As a result we face serious shortage of water all over the world, but the concern is not already highlighted for many reasons. Even though, in some regions (like north of Africa or the US), water prices had already increased and the problem will get more complicated in the future, say experts.

In fact, water costs a lot of money for its users. In France, farmers are paying average 300 euros per day on their irrigation system. These bills increase significantly if the user don’t pay attention about water consumption, or water waste, the bills would be higher and it may affect all the irrigation network, damage the plants, and may be a flood danger for the nearby areas.

Very often, the first indication that can get a consumer about a water leaks, is the water cost, which would be late to avoid the water waste. In most cases, the consumer isn’t aware about water over consumption instantiantly. Worse, the localization of water leaks in the fields needs extra effort and technical support in order to fix it, and we need to call an external experts to investigate the leakage, which may cost more fees.

Solution:

In order to resolve this problem, we need to have a real-time data from the water flows within the field. So, we propose the installation of a network of sensors in different locations on the irrigation system in order to monitor input and output flow of water in real-time. The data will be analysed by the WHALTER software, which is responsible to report the leaks instantly, using any requested format like SMS, Email, or mobile app.

Business Model

Value Proposition

The idea of the project is to provide a sustainable solution in order to detect the exact location of water leaks in real-time.

Actually, there are only few technological solutions in the agricultural sector, and rarely cloud services. WHALTER propose the introduction of cloud computing into the agricultural sector, specifically in the water consumption analysis. And help this critical sector to have a step further with high technologies, or what we call the “smart agriculture”.

Besides, one of the problems for water leakage detection is about the time. It is very important to find the leaks as soon as possible to prevent wasting water within the field, which can provide important damages for the agriculture itself. In order to resolve this problem, we need to have a real-time data from the water flows within the field. So, we propose the installation of a network of sensors in different locations on the irrigation system in order to monitor input and output flow of water in real-time. The data will be analysed by the WHALTER software, which is responsible to report the leaks instantly, using any requested format like SMS, Email, or mobile app.

Another problem of detecting water waste is finding the exact location of leakage. WHALTER has a network of sensors installed precisely with a specific location. So, depending on which sensor is reporting the leakage, WHALTER can detect exactly where the leak is happening, and report it to the owner. Also WHALTER has another value which is a system that is monitoring water consumption. The owner has a detailed and customizable analysis of the water consumption, and he can monitor the amount of water they are consuming in different situations. Sensors can also report water consumption in details for each separate sector of the agricultural farm, and provide some advices to reduce the consumption and save the bills.

Customer Segments

The advantage of a business which focuses on water consumption is that we can target all the sectors. Whether it’s homes, factories or agricultures. Here’s some facts: Domestic and commercial sector consumes 8% of the accessible freshwater on Earth. Industrial sector uses 3%, urbanism organizations (cities) uses around 4% and nearly 84% is used by agricultural sector.

In fact, the problem differs for each sector. In domestics, we care more about the water bills, so the water leaks is a concern only if we pay very expensive bills. In industry, it’s more important for some infrastructure, where the quantity of water is precise and significant, so we also need to be aware of the water leaks in real-time. Finally, the agricultural sector has a critical issue with localizing the water leaks within the fields. Because it takes a lot of time and effort to be aware of water waste, and also to monitor the water consumption (which is critical for some vegetables).

Of course, our project is useful and applicable for all those segments that need to consume water, but we decided to start with the agricultural sector because obviously it is the biggest consumer of water all over the world. Then, we can extend the business model to industrial sector, smart cities, and domestics (smart homes).

Revenue Streams

WHALTER propose a solution to install a network of sensors for our customers. These sensors should also be maintainable. So, the revenues of WHALTER are based on contracts, which allow the acquisition and the installation of the sensors, the after-sale service, and the subscription fees of the online account to access to all the features provided by our mobile app and web application.

We can distinguish three types of contracts, depending on the customer request:

1. Personal: dedicated for small farms, private farms, etc.
2. Premium: dedicated for medium farms, green houses, etc.
3. Enterprise: dedicated for very large farms, big fields, etc.

Team

Mojtaba Imani

Othmane Ramtani

Salsabil Amri