A decentralised infrastructure platform delivering WHO-standard drinking water to schools and clinics across the Lake Victoria basin. No grid. No pipeline. No groundwater dependency. Maintained by engineers who live there.
Atmospheric water generation
+ Solar photovoltaic + Battery
= One off-grid asset
450 L/day · 225 people served
Lake Victoria is the world's second-largest freshwater lake. It is also one of its most contaminated. The communities that depend on it are exposed to endemic cholera, typhoid and bilharzia — from the same water they drink.
The lake is the primary water source for over 40 million people across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. It is simultaneously a drinking source and a sink for untreated industrial discharge, domestic sewage, and agricultural runoff.[4]
Conventional responses — boreholes, treatment plants, piped distribution — are capital-intensive, slow to deploy, and operationally fragile in remote environments. They also remain dependent on the same compromised source. Boreholes deplete groundwater. Pipelines fail without grid power. Treatment plants need chemicals trucked in from elsewhere.
| Population dependent on lake | >40,000,000 |
| Riparian nations | 5 |
| Lake surface area | 68,800 km² |
| Annual ambient humidity (mean) | 70–85% RH |
| Mean ambient temperature | 22–32 °C |
| Solar resource (peak sun hours) | 5.5 h · day⁻¹ |
| Last comprehensive ecological survey | 1927–28 |
Atmospheric Water Generation replicates the natural process of condensation. Ambient air is drawn through a multi-stage filtration and condensation system. Moisture is extracted, treated, mineralised, and dispensed as drinking water that meets or exceeds WHO standards.
No borehole. No pipeline. No dependence on any water source at all — the source is the air.
Paired with solar photovoltaic arrays and battery storage, the system operates fully off-grid. The same tropical sun that drives the basin's high ambient humidity also powers the unit that harvests it.
Technology partner. GENAQ Technologies S.L. (Lucena, Spain). Part of the KEYTER Group, with over 35 years of industrial heat-exchange and refrigeration engineering heritage. Manufacturing AWG systems since 2008, deployed in 75+ countries across humanitarian, defence, industrial and community applications.[5]
Each deployment is a single integrated asset: an AWG unit, a solar photovoltaic array sized to power it, and a battery system sized for one full day of autonomy.
The system operates without grid connection. It produces water during the day and overnight from stored energy. Installation takes two to four weeks. Maintenance is light, routine, and — from Year 2 onwards — performed entirely by locally certified engineers.
A mixed fleet is deployed depending on context. School and clinic sites take the compact Stratus S200, the most efficient unit in the family. Community-scale lakeshore hubs take the Nimbus N500. Hub-level supply at fish landing sites and large health facilities takes the Cumulus C500 or, at scale, the Cumulus C5000 — already proven in solar-powered remote-community deployment in Djibouti.
| Model | Daily output | Specific energy | Application |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stratus S200 | 202 L · day⁻¹ | 0.19 kWh · L⁻¹ | Schools, clinics, health posts. Most efficient. Indoor-deployable. Solar-compatible. |
| Nimbus N500 | 506 L · day⁻¹ | 0.24 kWh · L⁻¹ | Village-level off-grid supply. Proven in East Africa. 250–500 person communities. |
| Cumulus C500 | 502 L · day⁻¹ | 0.42 kWh · L⁻¹ | Portable, ruggedised. Rapid deployment. Proven in humanitarian operations. |
| Cumulus C5000 | 5,091 L · day⁻¹ | 0.26 kWh · L⁻¹ | Hub-level supply. Market centres, large health facilities. Solar-proven in Djibouti. |
Lake Victoria's tropical humidity routinely exceeds nominal conditions. Real-world output frequently surpasses stated specifications. Source: GENAQ 2026 Catalogue and Pricelist.
Phase 1 deploys a mixed fleet of seven AWG assets across lakeshore communities in the Kisumu region of western Kenya — the most water-stressed yet climatically suitable region for AWG globally.
The pilot is sized to generate the performance data, community trust, engineering capability, and operational infrastructure needed to justify a significantly larger basin-wide rollout. Each site is selected for community need, demographic reach, and long-term infrastructure value.
Phase 1 is not a demonstration. It is a deployment.
| Site type | Qty | GENAQ unit | L · day⁻¹ (90%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Community hub | 4 | Nimbus N500 | 455 |
| School / clinic | 3 | Stratus S200 | 182 |
| Total fleet | 7 | Mixed | 2,572 |
Output figures at 90% of nominal 30°C/80%RH spec. Lake Victoria humidity regularly exceeds 80%. Solar sized at 5.5h peak sun, 78% system efficiency. Battery: 1 day autonomy at full load.
The system is built around a continuous flow. Air enters the unit. Water is generated, cleaned, sterilised, mineralised. Each litre is sampled and tested. Stored, dispensed at a free community kiosk. Drunk.
At every stage, the water is auditable. Independent lab certification of WHO compliance at each site. Continuous remote monitoring of total dissolved solids, temperature, flow rate, system health. The kiosk dispense rate, by hour, by day, is logged.
This matters because in the basin, drinking water that looks clean is not the same as drinking water that is clean. The platform makes the difference visible.
Technology programmes in the Global South have a well-documented failure pattern: equipment is installed with donor funding, the implementing organisation moves on, and within years the systems fall into disrepair.
We design against this from day one. Before the first AWG unit is commissioned, we will have trained and certified the local engineers who will maintain it — not as a secondary feature, but as the centrepiece of the programme.
When external funding ends, the technology will still be running. Because the people who understand it grew up on the shores of the lake.
| Phase | Duration | Content | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 3 months | Solar PV fundamentals: design, installation, electrical safety, inverter/battery, fault finding, commissioning | Solo install of solar PV up to 20 kW |
| 02 | 3 months | AWG technology & GENAQ systems: principles, S200/N500 operation, diagnostic fault-finding, water quality testing | GENAQ-certified AWG technician |
| 03 | 3 months | Solar refrigeration & cold chain: refrigeration principles, solar cold storage, food safety, gas handling | Cold-chain technician |
| 04 | 3 months | Supervised field deployment: live install & maintenance, mentor sign-off, end-of-programme exam | Full certification, co-issued with GENAQ |
The Solar AWG programme is the technology spine of a longer initiative to revitalise Lake Victoria and the communities that depend on it. As clean water security is established, complementary programmes address the lake's other interconnected crises — each one building on the infrastructure, the community trust, and the local technical expertise that the water programme creates.
The overarching mission. Anchored to the Lake Victoria 100 centenary expedition — the first comprehensive ecological survey of the lake in 100 years, replicating Michael Graham's 1927 baseline.
LV100 · 2027 expeditionThis programme. Decentralised, off-grid, independent of source-water quality. WHO-grade drinking water at point of use. Phase 2 extends to grey-water management and constructed wetlands.
WHO compliant · 7 sites Y1Distributed renewable infrastructure as the delivery mechanism. The same solar architecture that runs the AWG runs the kiosk, the cold store, the school lights, and surplus to neighbouring households.
Off-grid · solar + LFP storageEast Africa's fastest-growing food production sector. Power and cold-chain infrastructure as enablers. Supported by Aquatix (AQX), the pan-African aquaculture platform with operating tilapia businesses in the region.
AQX · ~30,000 MT target at maturityVocational training (solar, AWG, cold-chain). Microfinance access through Equity Bank Foundation. Mfangano Island programme with Train My Generation: women's health, vocational training, eco-restoration.
40% female enrolment min.The Water for People & Peace foundation has commercial flexibility built into its mandate. Social enterprises with margin, not perpetual subsidy. Revenue streams designed in: kiosk fees, maintenance contracts, mini-grid surplus, carbon credits.
30–55% cost recovery by Y2Each AWG asset deployed under this programme is instrumented from day one. Remote IoT telemetry reports water quality, system health, energy yield, kiosk dispense rate, and ambient atmospheric conditions — continuously.
At Phase 1 scale, this is operational telemetry: a way to detect faults, schedule maintenance, and verify performance. At Phase 2 scale (50+ assets, Kenya and Uganda) and Phase 3 scale (150+ assets, basin-wide), it becomes something else: the most granular, longitudinal environmental dataset in the Lake Victoria basin.
This is the foundation for AI-augmented operations. Predictive maintenance. Anomaly detection across the fleet. Atmospheric humidity mapping that informs siting for the next deployment. A basin-scale data layer that complements the LV100 ecological survey — water quality and system performance every minute, alongside the once-a-century scientific baseline.
Smart cities and towns are not announced. They emerge, asset by asset, from the data each one generates.
| Phase 1 (Y1) | Phase 2 (Y2–3) | Phase 3 (Y3–5) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | AWG drinking water | + Cold chain & sanitation | + RO at scale |
| Geography | 7 sites · Kisumu | 50+ sites · KE + UG | 150+ sites · KE+UG+TZ |
| Solar | 28.7 kWp | Expanded + cold chain | Industrial scale |
| Engineers | 50 certified | + 2nd cohort (80) | Regional training hub |
| Data layer | Asset telemetry | Fleet operations | Basin atmospheric model |
The programme is led by Charlie Blake from Nairobi, on behalf of the Water for People & Peace foundation. The wider team brings together the foundation's leadership, scientific authority, the lake's own long-term scientific narrative, and UK-side programme architecture.
Sub-Saharan Africa-focused business development, impact investment and sustainability professional. Extensive experience supporting frontier and emerging market businesses across food security, fintech, and high social impact technology.
Currently with Aquatix (AQX), the pan-African aquaculture platform. Charlie leads the programme on the ground — anchoring the Africa-side commercial leadership, the in-region partner relationships, and the link to the broader food-security pillar.
President of the Water for People & Peace foundation, established in Athens to promote access to safe, clean drinking water in regions affected by the global water crisis — without distinction of nation, religion or race.
The foundation has delivered projects across Greece, the EU, India, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Syria. The Lake Victoria programme is its first major sub-Saharan African deployment.
Co-Director of the Lake Victoria 100 Graham Centenary Expedition — the first comprehensive ecological assessment of the lake in a century, in partnership with the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation.
Co-founder of Train My Generation, working on Mfangano Island across women's health, vocational training and eco-restoration. Public 30-year commitment to the lake's recovery.
Particle physicist with a 30-year track record of turning physics IP into deployable technology. Founder of HydroVenturi Ltd, co-founder of deltaDOT Ltd, and of Gusto Systems (advanced air pollution analysis).
Former research fellow at Harvard and Cornell. Special advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee for Science and Technology.
UK-side architect of the programme structure: convening partners across the AWG technology side (GENAQ), the energy side, the scientific side (Imperial, KEMFRI, ACARE), and the in-region delivery partners.
Coordinates the Information Memorandum, the partner ecosystem, and the connective tissue between the foundation, the commercial vehicles, and the field operations.