Acres of Ice automated Ladakh's ice stupas, draining pipes before they freeze and crack

BBC News reported in June 2026 that in the early 2010s some Ladakh villages made artificial "ice stupas": water piped from higher up in winter was sprayed into the air to freeze into towers that melted in spring, when crops need water, after low glaciers had vanished. They worked but were a "nightmare" to manage; if temperatures fell below minus 20C or 30C the pipes could freeze and crack, and teams of four or five farmers camped high up to clear blockages with boiling water, often at night. Continuous flow also let warm-day water melt ice already formed.

Working with private company Acres of Ice, a new Automated Ice Reservoir (AIR) was developed. Water arrives at the valley floor under pressure and shoots from a vertical nozzle. A weatherproof control box, powered by solar panels and a battery, connects to a weather station and monitors air and pipe water temperature. If conditions near the freezing danger point, it shuts the top valve and opens a bottom valve to drain the pipe. It also fires bursts of mist, then waits long enough for each layer to freeze based on wind and humidity before spraying again.

The founder says AIR converts almost all of the diverted water into ice. The system runs automatically over a local wireless network, with a manual override.

Automate the stupa: drain the pipe when it nears freezing and spray in timed bursts that wait for each layer to freeze.

An empty pipe cannot freeze and crack, so draining it removes the main failure mode.

Timing sprays to each layer's freezing time stops fresh water melting the ice already formed.

Solar and battery power allow the system to run in remote locations without a grid.

Automatic control means farmers no longer need to camp near the water source in the cold.

Replace human night-watch with a sensor loop that removes the failure condition (water standing in a cold pipe).

In winter 2025, Acres of Ice and the local government ran 10 AIR projects across Ladakh. An engineer with the Ladakh council says villagers report recharged groundwater and revived springs and that a scientific study is planned, so the impact is not yet measured. The founder wants one system to build a dozen reservoirs. In Sakti, farmer Gelak Gutme says he now has water for his crops and hopes for two more.