Solar-powered ice towers bring water back to Himalayan farmers

Farmers in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, India, are losing their water supply as climate change erases the lower-altitude glaciers that fed their crops for generations — but a solar-powered, computer-controlled ice-making system is now offering a lifeline to villages sitting nearly 4,000 metres above sea level.

The technology, developed by private company Acres of Ice in partnership with local government, builds artificial glaciers that supply meltwater precisely when spring planting begins — replacing a natural system that no longer exists.

A desert landscape left without water

Gelak Gutme, a 65-year-old farmer in the village of Sakti, has grown wheat, peas, and potatoes in the region for most of his life. He has watched conditions deteriorate sharply in his lifetime as global warming has stripped away the small glaciers his community depended on.

"Ladakh has a brutal, single-cultivation season," Gutme said. "It is a desert with an extreme climate." He added that scarcity had become critical: "Last year I lost everything — my entire field got dried due of lack of water."

Lobzang Fardod, a member of a local water management committee in Ladakh, explained why the loss of lower glaciers is so devastating. "For generations, small glaciers sitting right above the valleys acted like frozen water towers, holding onto water all winter and releasing it right when spring farming began," he said. "Now that those lower glaciers have completely vanished into a desert of dry rock, there is nothing left at the top to melt."

The original ice stupa solution — and its limits

Facing this crisis, some Ladakh villages began experimenting with artificial ice towers — known as ice stupas — in the early 2010s. The method involved piping water down from higher elevations during winter and spraying it into the air, where it would freeze and accumulate into tall towers that melted in spring.

The stupas worked in principle but proved extremely difficult to maintain. If temperatures plunged below minus 20 or minus 30 degrees Celsius, water inside the pipes would freeze and crack them. To prevent this, teams of four or five farmers camped near the water source high in the mountains throughout winter, rushing to blockages with boiling water — frequently in the middle of the night.

Fardod described managing the systems as a "nightmare." The setup also had an efficiency problem: because water flowed continuously, warmer days would cause fresh water to melt ice already formed.

A smarter system takes over

That original approach has now been significantly upgraded. Murtaza Ali, Executive Engineer in the Irrigation and Flood Control Division at the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, said the failure of traditional water systems had made the region a centre for innovation. "Because traditional water systems are failing, Leh-Ladakh has become a hub for innovative, grassroots hydraulic engineering," he said.

Leh is the capital of Ladakh, a disputed territory in Indian-administered Kashmir, bordered by China to the east and Pakistan to the west.

The new system — called an Automated Ice Reservoir (AIR) — was developed by Acres of Ice in collaboration with the local government. Like its predecessor, it pipes water down from higher in the mountains. But rather than spraying continuously, it fires precisely timed bursts of mist through a vertical nozzle, coating the existing ice layer and then shutting off to allow each layer to freeze completely before the next burst is fired.

Dr Suryanarayanan Balasubramanian, Founder of Acres of Ice, described the nozzle as producing a "massive fountain" effect. "The system waits precisely long enough for that layer of water droplets to freeze solid based on current wind and humidity, then fires the spray again," he explained, adding that the AIR system converts almost all of the diverted water into ice.

Solar power and sensors eliminate the winter nightmare

The entire process runs automatically, controlled by a weatherproof box powered by solar panels and a battery, connected to a local wireless network. A linked weather station monitors environmental conditions including water temperature inside the pipes.

If sensors detect a dangerously rapid temperature drop or the pipe water approaching a critical threshold, the system shuts the upper valve and drains the standing water from the pipe entirely — eliminating the risk of cracking without any human intervention. A manual override is also available to villagers if needed.

Ali said early results from the ground are encouraging. "When we speak to the villagers, they are saying the groundwater is getting recharged and spring sources are getting revived. They are getting water in time. We are also planning a scientific study now to see exactly what impact it has made," he said.

Ten projects running, with ambitions to scale

During winter 2025, Acres of Ice and the Ladakh local government ran 10 AIR projects across the region. Balasubramanian said the company's focus is now on scaling the technology rapidly. "Our biggest challenge right now is to push the envelope in the technology to see how we can multiply the number of ice reservoirs we are building. With the same system that previously used to build only one ice reservoir, can we build a dozen?" he said.

A farmer's cautious hope

Back in Sakti, Gutme said the single AIR installation at his village has already changed the outlook for local farming, and he hopes the community will build at least two more artificial glaciers in the coming years.

"I am a farmer, land is all that I have to survive on. I don't know the technology, all that I know today is that I have water to grow my crops," he said. "We live in harsh climate that makes our life difficulty and lack of water was creating more issues. Many of youths in the village wated to go to cities to work. That would have been a disaster."