Cost Comparison - EZPack Storage system Vs Bottled Water
EZPack Water Storage System
The system is based on the following emergency operating concept:
- Water distribution stations based on EZPack bladders are deployed in the crisis area.
- EZPack truck modules are used for delivering water to the distribution stations.
- Flexups are used for carrying the personal water from the station.
Cost Analysis Assumptions:
- The calculation is for 100,000 people.
- Each person needs 6 liters per day.
- In the case of bottled water – 600,000 1-liter bottles would be required per day
- 25 distribution stations, each serving 4,000 people per day
- In the case of the EZPack Water Storage System – the volume of water storage needed per station is 24,000 liter.
- Filling water is transported to the distribution stations via trucks equipped with EZPack Water Truck models or F3DPacks. 2 models of the F3DPack are available: F3DPack 14 for standard flat-bed trucks can carry 14,000 liter; F3DPack 28 for flat-bed 18 wheelers can carry 28,000 liter.
- The stations are filled once a day, requiring two F3DPack 14 or one F3DPack 28 to fill the station.
- Each truck does 4 rounds per day – two F3DPack 14 can serve 4 stations per day; one F3DPack 28 can serve 4 stations per day.
EZPack Water Storage System Cost Analysis
- Equipment Cost per Distribution Station — assuming cost per liter of $5– is $120,000:
- The cost of F3DPack 14 is about $40,000; the cost of a F3DPack 28 is about $80,000; so the cost to purchase the modules for supplying the water is $500,000.
- A 6-liter Flexup costs about $3.50 and the Flexup can be reused during the event. However, since not all people will bring their Flexup for refill, (for events that last more than 5 days) we assume the number of Flexups needed to be 2.5 times the number of people served. That comes to a total of 250,000 Flexups at a cost of $875,000.
- The total cost of the equipment required to serve 100,000 people using the EZPack Water Storage System is $1,495,000. With $875,000 of the expenditure going towards wholly reusable equipment.
Bottled Water Cost Analysis:
- Bottled water is trucked to the crisis area.
- The following table shows the cost of bottled water in response to a 1, 7, 10 and 14-day water crisis assuming a cost of $0.50 and of $0.40 per bottle:
Total Cost No. of People Liter per Day per person Total Liter Per Day No. of 1 liter Bottles Cost per Bottle 1 day 7 days 10 days 14 days 100,000 6 600,000 600,000 $0.50 $300,000 $2,100,000 $3,000,000 $4,200,000 100,000 6 600,000 600,000 $0.40 $240,000 $1,680,000 $2,400,000 $3,360,000 - The significant cost of collecting and disposing of water bottles varies between events. For long (> 1 week) events, these costs may reach several millions of dollars.
Summary:
- In both cases the cost of transportation is assumed to be the same.
- For a single (first) water crisis event, the cost of bottled water seems to be about the same for an event lasting 7 days or less.
- The cost of EZPack’s Water Storage System for a 7-day event is about 1/3 of the cost of bottled water, when factoring in equipment reuse.
- There is a clear cost advantage to EZPack Water Storage over bottled water for events lasting longer than a few days and for repeated events.
- The EZPACK Water Storage System cost advantage becomes even more significant when considering the following:
- For shorter events the number of Flexups is lower.
- The actual equipment cost is expected to be significantly lower than the conservative values used for this analysis.
- In most cases, the equipment will be collected and re-used for multiple events. For re-use (from the second event and on), without the initial capital cost, the per-event cost of the use of the EZPack Water System drops by almost 60%.
- When using bottled water, there is the significant additional cost of bottle disposal after the event.
Conclusion
The EZPack Water Storage Solution for water crises has better cost effectiveness over bottled water (especially overall cost for several events). In addition, it is a much more environment-friendly solution than bottled water.