The Winddrinker changes brackish or salt water into drinking water with the use of reverse osmosis and wind energy. One Winddrinker machine can provide 5000 people with drinking water. A local entrepreneur operates the Winddrinker and takes care of water sales and machine repair. Within five years the local entrepreneur has financed the Winddrinker and can invest the earned money into new Winddrinkers.

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The Winddrinker is looking for help!

We are looking for volunteers to work with us on The Winddrinker:

-                   Fundraising expert

-                   Website (software) developer to think along about an open source platform

We would love to hear from you if you want to help out! Please contact Jasper de Valk via jasper@tedxamsterdam.nl
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Ideas Worth Doing: A fresh drink of water in hot Somaliland

June 24 2011 – What idea could more ‘worth doing’ than turning salt water into clean drinking water at low cost? And indeed a lot has been done since Winddrinker won the TEDxAmsterdam Award last November. At the exact moment I’m typing this blog, Abdurahman Ahmed  (a.k.a. Abdi) is on a flight from Amsterdam to Hargeisa, Somaliland, where he will start building the first Winddrinker right away. Sjoerd Dijkstra, initiator and project coordinator, brings us up-to-date.

As soon as the team recovered from the first euphoria of winning the TEDxAmsterdam award, they got busy.
Sjoerd: “While our contact in Somaliland filed applications for the required permits to build the Winddrinker, and sought out the right people for the local team that is actually going to build it, the team in the Netherlands started ordering all the parts needed to build the fist Winddrinker. The perfect windmill to drive the desalination pump is not  -as you might expect- a Dutch product, but a Turbex Windmill we found in South Africa; it was shipped from South Africa to Somaliland four weeks ago and should be arriving there as we speak. The desalination pump was also purchased in South Africa. Other parts, like the transmission and the reversed osmosis system, where purchased or custom-made in The Netherlands. In May we shipped them in a container at Rotterdam Harbour, along with a 100 m3 water storage tank, pipes and connectors. The shipment will arrive approximately at the same time as Abdi.”

Start digging!
Sjoerd: “Tomorrow, a Friday, is not a working day in Somaliland, so Abdi can rest from the flight and get reacquainted with his homeland. On Saturday, first thing in the morning, the local team starts digging the well (actually it’s not really digging, it’s jetting). The well will be only 5 meters deep, so the power of the pump can be used mostly to push the salt water through the membranes that filter the salt from it. The Winddrinker could also desalinate water directly from the sea, but we chose a location 400 m. from the sea, so the earth does the first part of the filtering process for us. The percentage of salt in the groundwater is much lower than in the seawater. On this location Winddrinker will be six times more productive than it would be right by the sea.”

Turn on the power switch

If everything goes according to plan, Sjoerd will turn on the power switch of the first winddrinker this September. “We’ll have to see if our planning is realistic,” he says. “Working hours are different in Somaliland and during the summer months there is a blistering heat that can make work impossible… But I am not complaining! After all, we only have to build the Winddrinker there; the locals have to live in that scorching heat, and up to now with very little water… It’s thrilling to be able to make a change there. We won’t miss the champagne, we will be toasting with delicious fresh drinking water!”

Mariana Oud

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Follow-up: The Winddrinker

Last year November, the Winddrinker won the TEDxAmsterdam Award. And since the beginning of April, the Winddrinker is one of five projects being supported by Ideas Worth Doing. Great developments for the Winddrinker and more than enough reason to sit and talk with Sjoerd Dijkstra, project coordinator of the Winddrinker, about this amazing project.

The Winddrinker is a low-tech, low-cost and low-maintenance way of turning salt water into clean drinking water. And all it needs for this is wind. Researchers of the Delft University of Technology developed a technology, which involves a windmill, a water pump, a transmission, and a desalination to turn salt water into clean drinking water. Sjoerd Dijkstra picked this up and saw a huge opportunity to solve (water) problems in developing countries.

I met Sjoerd on a warm and sunny afternoon. With great passion he tells me about the Winddrinker and his view on how economic growth can be established in developing countries. “Money, knowledge, and technology are essential for medium sized enterprises, which in turn are essential for the development of an economy”. To support these economies, a local entrepreneur will implement the Winddrinker in developing countries by gaining access to the technology, knowledge (about entrepreneurship and about the technology), and money needed to start the enterprise.

Land where the first Winddrinker will be built

Largely because of the huge amount of prize money won with the TEDxAmsterdam Award and other financial partners like Aqua for All, Delft University of Technology, and Hivos, enough money is raised for a first pilot. This installation will be up and running in Somaliland by the end of the summer. Very proudly, Sjoerd shows me pictures of the land where the installation will be built and tells me about the great progress that is being made.

The installation that will be built is based on a software model, able to generate the most optimal Winddrinker design, depending on local conditions like average wind speed and water quality. This model holds a tremendous opportunity for large scale roll-out: if more and more components and solutions can be added to its calculations, a more and more efficient design can be created. By making the software open source, Sjoerd believes he can achieve this goal with the power of the “WE”.

I wondered where his vision on open source software comes from. Surprisingly, TEDxAmsterdam itself showed Sjoerd the power of sharing and openness, maybe even more worthy than the great amount of prize money for the TEDxAmsterdam Award, or the guidance through Ideas Worth Doing. “Everybody can contribute to the success and development of the Winddrinker, and everybody can do this in their own way: by investing money, sharing one’s knowledge, or using one’s unique talent”. Sjoerd believes that if all knowledge and talent can be combined in a unique and constructive way, the Winddrinker should be able to become even more efficient than large desalination installations. This would make clean drinking water available for everyone. Who wouldn’t want that?

Tim Jansen

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