We frequently receive requests for supply of solar pumps and interest from missionaries, NGOs and others involved in the poor areas of Africa and other parts of the world. The deficiency of clean water for drinking and irrigation is one of the topical problems in tropical areas, especially desert or drought. According to UN data, more than 880 million people lack access to clean water, while for thirst and diseases related to the scarcity and water quality, die each year about 3.4 million people.

Nova Somor is an innovative start up with a social vocation and is very sensitive to such requests, but unfortunately does not have the economic resources to satisfy them directly. The missionaries and NGOs almost never have money or just have little. For this reason we decided to offer the option of connecting “supply and demand” in this specific context. Companies, institutional donors, foundations or just generous people can help to finance the production and send solar pumps

We therefore ask those who is aware of the specific needs or is near, or is in contact or participates to projects where water is used, but there are no economic resources to make wells or pumping systems set up, to let us know. Similarly we ask those who want to help by donating, or want to sponsor a project also, legitimately, to endorse the image of its brand and raise awareness in certain markets your business, get in touch with us. We wish to take action on specific projects, defined by place of action, characteristics and scale of the action, costs and lead times.

Nova Somor will reduce by at least 50% of its usual margins. In the future when we’ll be strengthened, we will certainly be the direct donors. Who donates can follow in real time the progress of the project which has decided to join and his name will be reported in the area of ​​our website that is now under development. Of course you can enable substantial sponsorship for projects developed specifically at the request of the benefactor.

Contattateci e vi diremo come fare.

Mancini Giordano

Tel. 335 5889401

giordano@novasomor.it

Nova Somor was invited to participate at the festival “Ecofuturo” which was held from September 1st to the 6th at Alcatraz, the structure created by Jacopo Fo in the Umbrian hills between Gubbio and Perugia. The section of the festival which we were asked to take part was entitled “Technologies for the southern hemisphere, peace and solidarity.” Roberto Belardinelli and I were very happy Sunday morning to present the technology of solar pumps Nova Somor.

Once there, we were surprised to see the positive atmosphere and the emotional involvement of people involved in the event. There were entrepreneurs,very prepared technicians, national and European politicians and other experts that submitted data, information and technical solutions on the same table. It ‘was amazing to see how the politicians, who usually come only for presence communicating abstract thoughts, typical of their profession, were committed on the concrete.

Senator Gianni Girotto intervened speaking of energy with very interesting data, while the Member of European Parlament Dario Tamburrano presented, as well as a lot of data, a new technology to cook with any fuel, without smoke and high efficiency lighting directly on stage one “Elsa Stove”. It is a pyrolytic kitchen stove, cheap and very easy to implement and whose designs are available on the Internet. Thanks to the biomass gasification is obtained a flame that does not smoke and that easily reaches 600 degrees of temperature.

The technology, also known as the “perfect fire”, came to the attention of the FAO that will promote the diffusion especially in Africa, where because of the smoke generated by cooking fires thousands of people die from intoxication every year. Finally, the thing that certainly made us more pleasure, was to see that someone is working to create a network of networks for the change of the economic paradigm, environmental and social, both in Italy and in the world.

The festival Ecofuturo was streamed on the Web and in these days the festival site exceeded one million and seven hundred thousand views. The idea that has been exposed by Michele Dotti, Jacopo Fo, Daniel Taron and other organizers of the event, is to network companies, associations, politicians and many others who are committed to change, so that the critical mass can increase the visibility of new solutions and their diffusion.

After the difficulties with certain types of curved solar collector NS1 , which will cause the delay of the introduction in the market , we decided to give space to the NS2 plan sensor panels. After two months of bench testing and under the sun in the laboratory, here are the pictures of the tests at the well in the countryside of Rimini.

After the difficulties with certain types of curved solar collector NS1 , which will cause the delay of the introduction in the market , we decided to give space to the NS2 plan sensor panels. After two months of bench testing and under the sun in the laboratory, here are the pictures of the tests at the well in the countryside of Rimini.

At the beginning of the innovative start-up Nova Somor in July 2014 it was planned to produce for the first few years a single model: the Eliopompa NS1. We had to handle one type of engine with the variables related to the hydraulic pump, useful to choose flow rate and hydraulic head. Only a frame with over a single type of solar collector made ​​tile-shaped and coated polycarbonate. We studied a series of simple steps for the tropicalization of the machine to make it suitable for use in harsh environments such as those rustic emerging countries with a warm climate and with people little or not educated . Some simple accessories were to complete our offer. It was a choice due to the initial limits of our industrial capacity and also by the need to simplify the communication to the market.

But as often happens with the passage of time, we realize that it is desirable, and sometimes necessary, to change the company’s strategy. Two contributing factors have led us to change our mind and to start at the end of July 2015 a different product policy. The first is related to some problems emerged in June in the use of technology roll bond aluminum in the solar collector. Some strains due to the pressure and a lower performance than the calculations made in autumn of 2014 have created problems for the beginning of the production of the NS1.

Meanwhile however some experimental models in multiple flat panels of NS2, that we had realized as examples out of range at the request of a missionary, gave good results. Considering the many customer requests, we have started to offer them instead of NS2 NS1 not yet available. The second factor is instead linked to the fact that requests for the product by potential customers, accumulated in hundreds in the first year of existence of Nova Somor, showed a tremendous amount of variables. One model, the NS1, would never have been able to meet so many needs and so different from each other.

So we happen to have the material to correct the defects of the sensor of NS1 at least until October, while NS2 is already being developed. Meanwhile, thanks especially to the suggestions of some missionaries working in Africa that love our product, we developed the idea of NS3. It’s the “frugal” version of NS2, more flexible, economical and potentially more powerful, since it can also work with numerous flat panels . Finally it has already been developed and sold at the University of Bologna the first NS4, the model with two heat exchangers and without panels, which works with the use of waste heat. Some burners and boilers and a kit ready and complete for drip irrigation complement our product range. At least for now!

Today, July 27th 2015, was delivered one of our Solar pump NS1 at the laboratory of the Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bologna “Alma Mater Studiorum”. Professor Ing. Michele Bianchi, Professor of machines and systems for energy and the environment, has decided to invest in our technology and has purchased one of our eliopompe, modified with the addition of a second plate heat exchanger for testing in the laboratory, where solar energy is simulated with a kettle. We have also provided a special metallic support to facilitate the placement and use in the laboratory.

During testing bench took place last Thursday, the professor told us that the department intends to know and study our appliance to be able to start a search and then propose a collaboration to sell us the results of their work. Considering our machine the most promising of those who have appeared on the market in recent years. This approach means that the University believes in our technology and believes in our business success, since it is expected that they will pay for their work! It is an injection of confidence in the difficult and laborious start-up phase.

For what concerns us we do not ask better than to be able to collaborate with a prestigious university, rich in skills like the one of Bologna. We can not develop all the research and we need above all a support for the complicated thermodynamic calculations, made even more difficult by the fact of operating in a technology very little explored and the almost complete absence of specific scientific literature. We had tried in 2014 to approach with other universities, but without success. This new opportunity fills us with enthusiasm and opens up new interesting perspectives.

Among the 30s and 50s Daniele Gasperini developed different models of the thermodynamic engine at low temperature. They were different in size and performance, but always made mainly cast iron and based on a mechanism “connecting rod – crank”. In Nova Somor our Roberto Belardinelli, in addition to using more modern materials characterized by greater resistance, reliability and lightness compared to cast iron, he used a piston mechanism aligned on the same axis that reduces to the maximum the energy losses due precisely to the “connecting rod – crank “. The result was an invention whose patent was filed in early 2015.

During the winter of 2014-2015 we got to experience long-mechanics of our thermodynamic engine, the cylinder of the gas supply and the hydraulic pump being able to achieve excellent results. Having designed and built each component, they have been assembled in our workshop several complete groups which have spent hundreds of hours on the test bench. Kettle replaced the heat of the summer sun and a chiller simulated the fresh water of a well. First we switched valves piston movement of the motor, which is positioned inside the central cylinder of the assembly, consisting of three cylinders mounted on the same axis. Then he worked extensively on seals and their compatibility with the volatile gas used to create the thermodynamic cycle of the engine.

So then we worked on the calibration of the feed cylinder of liquefied gas, to detect the correct displacement in relation to that of the engine cylinder and to the evaporator. Then it was developed the hydraulic pump and finally we worked on the reduction and / or elimination of all friction and the final choice of the materials used and surface treatments to do. The result is balanced, powerful and reliable. Some problems of “teething” it can still give, as all new systems of recent invention do, but they will certainly be problems manageable and above “normal” in statistical terms.

As shown in our recent short video after one year since the founding of Nova Somor, we are ready for the market. Having started as innovative start-up in mid-July 2014, we arrived at the first prototype machine complete in late September. For this reason, last year we had a only few days of autumn sunshine to test the solar collector. The data we have been collecting have been promising, but we did not have the time needed as it was for the system pump – motor.

Fortunately the last 60 days between mid-May and today were full of sunny days that we could use to develop the solar collectors. But as for the engine system – pump there were never doubts, with the solar collector we were to evaluate two very different technologies: that of the roll bond and that of the finned pack. Both are appropriate, but they have different strengths and different defects that must be seen and experienced on the field. These tests made us very busy and committed our energies for much longer than we expected: we have at least a couple of months behind schedule that we set in 2014. In these days we are completing the tests for the first deliveries of complete NS1 in Italy and in Africa.

It’s been a year since the start up began its journey, and nine months after the presentation of the first prototype, we are ready for the market. Giordano Mancini and Roberto Belardinelli explain how the solar pump works…

Aberration of consumerism and the ideology of continued growth have caused a great deal of damage in just a few decades, both in terms of environmental impact and the frenzied exploitation of resources. We are already feeling the effects of this, but future generations will pay an even higher price. It is as if we went to a restaurant and ate as much as we could, then walked out and left our grandchildren to pay the bill. It is not just about a financial burden that we are dealing with, a debt to manage, but also periods of scarcity, climate change, pollution, disease and many other unpleasant things.

Nova Somor wants to help clarify the approach to energy, in terms of both our perception and the language associated with it, which is currently distorted by marketing needs and the “robber economy” that we are happily practicing. Some claim to create energy, as if they were gods and obviously that is not true. Others say we must take advantage of the energy, a stupid and chimerical illusion, because you still pay a high price, although it might be paid by someone else in other parts of the planet or by future generations. Others are always looking for new energy production methods and technologies, which is pointless as there is already so much available everywhere.

First, we should reduce the huge amount of waste currently occurring and try to maintain a well-balanced standard of living whilst consuming less energy. We should then identify more gentle sources of renewable energy. Using free energy provided by the sun within the limits of our natural needs is a good example. That is precisely what NOVA SOMOR wants to demonstrate and do with its solar engines.

During our time at the tenth edition of SIAM, we were able to see for ourselves the amazing potential offered by Morocco in terms of agriculture. There is plenty of sun, the land is fertile and, with the right irrigation, excellent and abundant harvests of high-quality agricultural produce can be obtained. However, we also realised that water is being managed incorrectly and the same errors are being made that have been made in the past in Italy, Spain and other parts of the world. Too much water is being used too quickly, causing a dramatic drop in the water table. In the south for example, in the area of Agadir, wells were 20 or 30 metres deep a few years ago, but now they need to go down more than 110 metres! The government passes good laws and takes appropriate action, for example funding drip systems, but illegal wells are still made, sprinkler systems are still used and water wastage continues despite the good policies.

In the first few days of the exhibition farmers visited our stand asking if our solar pumps could achieve flow rates of 25,000 or 30,000 litres per hour. We told them that technically it was possible and we would work on it. However, on reflection we have decided not to. We do not want to be party to the depletion of water resources in Morocco or other countries. We do not want to work for the agricultural industry, our clients are the 500 million small farmers counted by FAO, who feed more than half of the human race. They are the ones we work for, as well as the residents of villages and towns without electricity where water is needed for drinking, washing and irrigating small vegetable gardens. Our clientele will be defined by the small size and limited performance of our NS1, bearing in mind that 3,000 or 5,000 litres per hour are more than enough for a small farmer or village.