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Dear Susie and Katy,

I am very impressed with your fundraising efforts. Although I cannot be precise about what cost of a solar water pump as each situation will be different and will depend on the depth of the water and the amount of water that is pumped each day. It will also make a difference how far the pump is from the town where the equipment is being supplied, I can provide with some of the costs that we have from our work in Kenya that could be useful as a guideline.

The cost estimates for one of the pumps installed in Kenya are shown below. I do not have the corresponding performance figures for this particular installation.

Item No	Item	Kenyan Shillings	US dollars	Pounds Sterling
1	Tap	1500	15	10.65
2	Concrete Block	1,500	15	10.65
3	Training Fee	4,500	45	31.95
4	Plastic Pipe	2,700	27	19.17
5	Metal Pipe	5,500	55	39.05
6	Solar panel of 100 watts	3,500	35	24.85
7	Solar pump accessories ( wiring, control unit, the white pipes)	540,000	5400	3834
8	Solar pump	260,000	2600	1846
9	Tank of 10,000 litres capacity	90,000	900	639
10	Labour (skilled & unskilled)	100,000	1000	710
	Total	1009200	10092	7,165.32

1 Kenya Shilling = 0.01 US$ and 0.0071 Pounds. More than 1 solar panel is used for each pump.  

The element missing from the costing above is drilling the borehole which would be a considerable addition. Although the depth of borehole will vary the depth could be up to 100m in the locations where Practical Action is working. This will also have a significant impact on the water supply as or the cost of extraction.

More generally, Solar water pumps can pump from depths of 180m although it does start to get quite challenging at that depth. Practical Action has not ever attempted to pump from such a depth.

A couple of examples we have from Kenya are of much shallower depths.

S/N	Site name	District	Depth (m)	Yield (m3)	SWL	Population served
1	Upper Kotela	Loima	60	1.8	34	2658
2	Lorengelup	Turkana Central	80	2.4	25	3400
	Total number of people served					6058

The supplier was a relatively large company in the region that deals with water pumping equipment.

Davis & Shirtliff Ltd
PO Box 41762, Dundori Road
00100
Nairobi
Kenya
Tel: +254 20 536901
Fax: +254 20 557617
E-mail: d&s@dayliff.com
Website: www.dayliff.com

I have listed a few details about the work Practical Action has been involved in and I would also like to highlight the technical brief that Practical Action has produced on the subject https://practicalaction.org/solar-photovoltaic-waterpumping-1

In some of the locations in Turkana, they are so remote that it was decided that solar water pumps were not appropriate because if they were to break then it would be very difficult to get replacement parts so there water sources are made into more traditional wells which can be fixed on the spot.

I hope this is useful. If you have any further questions you are very welcome to contact me again.

Yours sincerely,
Neil