"Doing nothing is not an option."

KSB is a company that takes social responsibility seriously. It is hardly surprising that KSB's employees also contribute privately and sometimes become everyday heroes. For example Michael Fath, who used his technical know-how to help a well building project in Congo become a success. 

Sometimes two people meet and discover that they think alike about certain objectives – Often this leads to something great. This was the case when Michael Fath – project manager for digitalisation at KSB – got to know Torsten Braun – co-founder and one of the three managers of the "Keep Smiling" charity based in Ludwigshafen, Germany. They first met in Frankenthal when Torsten Braun asked KSB for a donation for his most important project: He was planning to fill a container with drilling equipment and electronics destined for Tshikapa in Congo. This is where he was planning to drill wells together with the local partner organisation Budikadidi. The aim was to have solar-driven pumps provide the people living there with clean water. 

One of the reasons the two men got on well right from the start was that they had both experienced people struggling to access drinking water. Michael Fath, for example, had worked as the project manager developing the AquaSol solar pump. When installing a prototype on the Dong-Van plateau in Northern Vietnam, he saw women who had to overcome an altitude of 70 metres while carrying water for their families. Since April 2022, the solar pump developed by his team has taken over this task, providing the 25 families living in the Lung Lu village with 10 cubic metres of water a day during the dry season. Working for KSB means more to him than just earning money. "I want to give something back to the world," he says about himself. 

Torsten Braun had found out about the value of water in a different way: When travelling in Congo he saw women walk to a source of water every day, carrying home water canisters weighing 30 kilograms on their heads to be able to cook and provide drinking water for their children. He also saw children suffer from diarrhoea caused by the polluted river surface water they had been drinking. "Without water, there won’t be any development," he says. "It's where it all starts." 

For KSB and for Michael Fath, not helping was not an option. Michael Fath is indeed an idealist; he is also an engineer. This makes him aware of how difficult such a project is to realise. Pumps work best under constant conditions with a continuous energy supply from the grid. Every pump has got a so-called best efficiency point at which the ratio of speed to head and volume flow rate is perfect. "The challenge with solar pumps is that the energy supply changes continuously – that's far from trivial," he explains. It is not only the voltage supplied by the solar panels that fluctuates but also the head in the well. "This is why our expert advice was so important." 

The challenges on site were described by Torsten Braun in his blog: Several times the project was hanging by a thread. For instance when a stressed truck driver threatened to push the container off his vehicle as no crane was available for unloading it. Or when all the water from the borehole disappeared into a layer of soil. 

Time and again Michael Fath provided remote expert support per WhatsApp. For example when, after the pump had been lowered into the well and connected to the power supply, no water came out. Instead, an "Overvoltage!" error message was displayed. Michael Fath observed that in the tropical sun the solar modules were supplying a higher voltage than expected. He recommended disconnecting one of the modules. This solved the problem: Shortly after, clean water was flowing from the well for the first time. 

Within a few minutes a crowd had gathered around the water outlet. Women with buckets, canisters and colourful plastic bowls came in droves. They did not know that from that point on, water would be pumped every day, enough water for everyone. The crowd of people was beyond excited. Torsten Braun took some photos and sent them to Michael Fath, who had tears of joy in his eyes when he saw them on his laptop screen. He reminisces: "It was an emotional moment – seeing the water pouring out, seeing the smiles on everyone's faces." 

Depending on the sunshine hours, the well provides 20,000 to 25,000 litres of water per day, supplying up to 5000 people with 5 litres of drinking water each. It is important to Torsten Braun that the well's operation is economically sustainable and can continue to be run by local people. The idea is for the well to be operated by a water guardian with users paying a water token of approximately 8 euro cents for a container of 25 to 30 litres of water. "We want to help people help themselves," says Torsten Braun. Two further wells are planned to be built by the end of 2023. "This would not have been possible without KSB's expert knowledge," he concludes. "KSB's involvement was a stroke of luck for us."