Assumption Testing – Test and Learning Cards
Since our product is meant to be sold to governments of Middle Eastern countries and coastal resorts, it was difficult to reach the specific niche of users that would be most insightful in our assumption testing. As a reasonable alternative, I approached evaluating the technological feasibility of developing a wavepowered desalinator.
To do this, I reached out to faculty from the Doerr School of Sustainability — specifically, professors of environmental engineering. I found someone who worked specifically in desalination and was able to introduce our project and ask some questions about her perspective on our idea.
The general consensus on developing a wave-powered device was it depended on how much energy a wave generator could produce — desalination devices generally run on 3.8 kWh/kgal of seawater, so as long as there is enough energy coming from one wave generator, we could theoretically just hook the desalination device up to this power source.
Since the expert I talked to was experienced in desalination but not wavepower, some reasonable next steps would be to research thoroughly the amount of energy produced from an average wave power generator vs how much energy a desalination device would need. If the results don’t match up, we also may need to rethink the way we package our product: instead of the 1 to 1 generator to desalination device ratio that we have currently, it might be more feasible to couple one desalination device to multiple generators.
