As there is a larger need for drinking water, expensive methodologies are employed in order to get portable drinking water. This work aims at improving the yield of freshwater from a conventional solar still using the different low-cost energy storage material. Theoretical and experimental studies are carried out to analyze the performance of a single slope solar still. From this study, it is observed that the yield of freshwater from the solar still with spherical ball salt storage achieves the maximum yield of 3.7 kg/m(2) as compared to a conventional single slope solar still with sponge and without any storage material as 2.7 and 2.2 kg/m(2) respectively. The deviations between theoretical and experimental values for with spherical ball salt storage, with sponge and conventional solar still are found as 16.1%, 9.7% and 4.0% respectively. Payback period of the present solar still is found as 43 months as it is quicker than other conventional single slope solar still. Finally, single slope solar still with spherical ball heat storage gives low cost of water. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.