This crowdfunding campaign aims to raise funds for the pilot test and the commercialisation of an innovative microhydro device. This microhydro device provides a new way of renewable energy generation for urban high-rise buildings by harnessing the energy from the rainwater fall in the building's downpipes. We are planning to run a pilot test at several potential buildings to harness the water energy and supply it back to the premises to evaluate its performance. The capital raised from this crowdfunding will be used to procure an inverter, batter wall, motor generator, and fabrication of microhydro device. 

How Much We Need

We are truly excited to commercialise this technology. We have conducted a test run with our minimum viable product (MVP) and found out that the water speed and turbine rotational speed are promising. Therefore, we would like to take one more step further to improve and produce a prototype device to be installed in the building 24/7 and monitor the result. 

So, what we need for right now is to use the funds mainly for R&D equipment:
1. Electric Power inverter- RM 2000
2. High efficiency 3 phase motor generator- RM 2000
3. Battery module - RM 2400
4. Fabrication of housing and turbine - RM2500
5. Wiring, conduits, tools and installation equipment - RM1100

The total fund needed will be RM 10,000

The timeline of project execution:
December 2022 - Finalize prototype design, purchase of materials and liaise with product manufacturer.
January 2023 - Prototype fabrication and assembly of components and electronics.
February 2023 - Installation of prototype device in potential building and execute pilot test.

For this pilot test, we are so excited and truly cannot wait to implement this microhydro energy generation project at our engineering faculty building. As we are amazed at how enormous the rainwater downpours that drive our MVP generator device, which led us to imagine how much more energy we can achieve to generate when we are able to install a modular design that consists of multiple devices installed along the downpipe!

However, to keep our minds in reality. If the pilot test results did not meet with our expectation to have a high power output (1kW above per device). We will continue to investigate and improve the system. Rest assured, the electricity is definitely can be generated by using this microhydro technology. It is just a matter of how much amount of power output it can be generated that is adequate and feasible for usage. Even in this matter, we already have solutions plan in our mind too, just that we can't wait to carry it out. We are so excited to get our hands on taking action in building the pilot test to figure out the actual long-term result. We are truly grateful to have you be part of this project by contributing the necessary funds for us to realize and further improve this technology innovation that could have huge potential in the renewable energy sector as well as in the area of smart city development.

Here are some records and progress.

The MVP testing video 1: https://youtube.com/shorts/1vUeWYSBj6s?feature=share

The MVP testing video 2: https://youtube.com/shorts/9M8t420HZy0?feature=share

Prototype Design 3D Modeling Video: https://youtu.be/fk3l-m3uP1s

The Impact

This microhydro innovation technology for high-rise buildings has a very huge potential in providing alternative clean energy generation to urban cities. Especially for developed countries or cities where concrete jungles were filled all over the land, the side effect of the heat island effect, climate change, and high carbon footprint are the major impact faced by these countries. Therefore, this new type of renewable energy solution can be seen to provide a potential solution that caters to their problems. Some potential countries that can be benefited from this innovative technology are Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, USA, and UK, where there is an abundance of high-rise buildings and also the on-going trend toward promoting sustainability features in their buildings, which has shown a huge potential market.

Other than this, according to the global policy like the Paris Accord, SDG, and ESG, which obviously show the importance and trend in transitioning into renewable energy is not far away (2030) to become a net-zero low carbon footprint nation. Therefore, we can say, after 10 years, there will be majority of energy generation come from renewable energy. This again shows the potential in the market, the contribution we can provide, and the room of impact that this HYDROZON innovative technology had. 

As a startup from Malaysia, we aspire to contribute a little through this innovative technology that can be added to the portfolio of the renewable energy mix in Malaysia and even around the world to transition to clean energy and become a net-zero low carbon footprint nation. 

This campaign with the fund that raised is only focused on the pilot test stage. The commercialization of a technology product is often a challenging and long journey that required a huge amount of capital. Soon, we plan to move into sandbox programme with the government and industry such as the owner of the building (Hotels, Universities, Condominiums, Shopping malls, and Property developers) to conduct actual installation and monitoring at their premises. Other than this, we would continue to patent the final product design and technology, and obtain technology certificate etc. All of these endeavours require the support of funding and investment for us to execute accordingly. Therefore, your contribution and investment truly matter to us. You may join us and support us at different stages throughout this commercialization process and God willing to witness the fruits of our works.

Risks & Challenges

The challenge that we face in producing this microhydro innovative technology is the amount of power output might be too low for the market need. We need to design and improve the microhydro device that is capable to generate up to 1kW to make sure 1 device is powerful enough to generate an acceptable amount of power. When combine as a modular of multiple devices in the building, the power generated will therefore become enormous. 

The solution to improving the power output lies with the motor generator's efficiency. By selecting a highly efficient motor generator this challenge can be easily solved. However, a highly efficient motor generator is often costly (up to $1000 USD) due to the expensive rare earth magnet that is used in the motor generator.

For the long run, we have planned a solution to solving these issues of the low efficiency power output or higher price challenges that are commonly seen in the market. In the future, we will conduct R&D to design and produce a 9 phase motor generator that has a higher power output than the current motor generator in the market. However, it will be needed much more investment and work in achieving this. Nonetheless, we are confident and happy to explain the strategy and vision that we had.

Other Ways You Can Help

Apart from contributing by providing funds. We would like to welcome you to be in touch with us in providing your expertise, advice, knowledge, or network to us as alternative means of support and encouragement. 

We also welcome any candidate to join our HYDROZON startup team to work together in this meaningful innovative technology to impact the world. We are looking for engineers, IT experts, designers, etc in expanding our team as we have received many opportunities that are very valuable and important for us to execute this project. Therefore, much manpower and experts are needed to speed up our fabrication and pilot test. We are more than happy to have you join our team! Through this tech startup journey, we have won quite some prominent competitions in the past, and have been encouraged and improved each time. We are looking forward to achieving more and turning this technology into a reality.

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