Innovation

Headlined by their service Pani Zed, Pani works with large companies in many sectors of water treatment, at both a municipal and industrial level. Whether it be desalination, water or wastewater treatment. Pani Zed is a data analytics platform with machine learning capabilities, aimed at condensing and simplifying large amounts of associated data vital to running a water treatment facility.

By collecting mass amounts of operational data, Pani Zed provides an overview of operations, allowing plants to optimize performance by providing clear data on water quality, chemical levels, energy consumption and other important factors. It uses predictive analytics with live detection of any potential deviations, preventing potential downtime.

Its machine learning capabilities empower it to improve its analytical capabilities over time. The more data it takes it, the more accurate its predictions can become, constantly improving itself. Pani Zed had made a significant leap in the digitization of the water treatment world, giving plants countless ways to improve through saving on costs, time, and energy put into time intensive tasks. This shift towards a data-driven, highly efficient system in a field there hasn't been many advancements in over the past decades is huge for the business, and will lead to great positive benefits for our Earth.

Inspiration

“I mean the CEO, it's his passion and his mission”, said Lareina. Devesh Bharadwaj was in high school when he was inspired by a statistic he found, stating that 60% of the world’s needs for clean water go unmet every year. With a growing population and a limited water supply to fuel it, that gap was only going to increase. “So [Devesh] decided to start a business to do something about that and try to make water more accessible and more affordable to treat, because we're running out of fresh water supplies that are just out in nature, and treatment is going to be required at a much larger scale as we progress into the future.”

After beginning studying Engineering at the University of Victoria, Devesh started Pani Energy as a side project, “Pani” being the hindi word for water, and “Energy” as he initially began working on energy technologies. 2 of his first projects being an adaptive desalination technology designed to reduce the energy used in desalination by up to 30%, and an osmotic energy-storing technology for storing renewable energy. Today, Pani works on the software side tackling the future of water-treatment. In the words of Devesh himself, “It is no doubt a challenging mission but at the same time is too important to fail.”

Overall impact

In the short term, the biggest impact is through the facilities themselves implementing Pani’s technology. So much of the world relies on water. When dealing with huge treatment systems, failure and downtime is not an option. Lareina explained “There’s a ton of equipment that's very expensive, sometimes it's custom. You really don't want that stuff to blow up because then you can't be treating your water, people are not getting their drinking water, or you can't be processing or producing your product on an industrial level.” As Pani expands, they are working with bigger and bigger clients, both industrial and municipal. With Pani, the optimization of water treatment, the error detection services they offer greatly reduces risk of possible issues arising, keeping the water flowing.

As found in their roadmap, the big long term impact is Pani’s work towards “Water Zero.” Pani is working towards allowing plants to reach zero emissions, inefficiencies, risk, and access gap. Pani is working to reduce annual carbon emissions from within the water treatment sector by 510 megatons in 2032. “We're trying to solve an aspect of climate change the best we can in our own little way.” By setting a standard in their sector, Pani could greatly reduce emissions from an industry contributing 10% of world carbon emissions yearly.

Business benefit

Pani has successfully branded itself as one of the leaders in this shift to sustainable water treatment practices. Pani’s work in regions facing issues of water scarcity and limited resources for water treatment has made itself much more appealing and accessible to a wider market. Most recently, Pani has partnered with WABAG, an Indian Multinational company doing work both municipally and industrially in the realm of water treatment and desalination. Being the 3rd largest private water operation on the globe, WABAG provides clean drinking water to over 88 million people.

These large partnerships are exactly what a company like Pani needs to expand. With large investments from groups such as Blue Bear Capital, Mazarine Ventures, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), as well as government entities, Pani is on track to keep expanding their operations. Already having gone global, the growth ceiling on Pani is extremely high. Bringing together some of the brightest minds in AI, engineering, and environmental science, Pani’s work is not only benefiting the environment, but driving huge success on the business side, and opening up doors all across the industry. In 2022, Pani’s CEO Devesh Bharadwaj was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, an award given to a list of 30 notable entrepreneurs under age 30, based on factors of revenue, social impact, scale, and potential.

Social and environmental benefit

As discussed earlier, Pani’s work in reducing emissions from an industry with unnecessarily high emissions and energy usage is changing the future of the water treatment sector. By achieving their goal of reducing annual carbon emissions by 510 megatons per year by 2032, that would be reducing 1% of the World’s yearly emissions, equal to over 100 Million cars worth of emissions, over 90 million homes worth, and 126 coal-fired power plants worth. While current data shows that emissions from the water treatment sector are responsible for 10% global emissions, less than 1% of current climate technology investments are being put towards water-based solutions. As stated here in their “Roadmap to Decarbonization”, the 4 key tenets to the goal are; working with the facilities, simultaneously enhancing operating margins while de-risking production, rapid deployment of the service with low barriers to adoption, continued innovation with their machine-learning technology, and by setting the clear goal of the “Water Zero Facility.”

To show for their work, this past year was Pani’s second year in a row being named to the Global Cleantech 100, an award given to companies leading innovation works towards the goal of net-zero emissions. Their work aligns great with the UN's SDG, showing clear progress towards their goals of clean water, economic growth, innovative infrastructure and decarbonization. Pani is working towards a greener future in one of the most vital sectors to our everyday lives, and the path for their company is bright.

Interview

Lareina Kostenchuk, Facilitator - Customer Success

Watch video on YouTube