OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Green initiatives from South Asia dominated the 2007 Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, with one Indian project and one from Bangladesh bagging first prize in three out of the five categories for which the awards, popularly known as the ‘Green Oscars’, are given.

Additionally, Indian energy entrepreneur Harish Hande was given an Outstanding Achievement Award instituted this year to honour a past winner whose work has made a significant contribution to the spread of sustainable energy solutions since winning the award.

Another Indian project, and one from Nepal, also won second prize at the world’s second most prestigious sustainable energy awards which were announced in London on June 21. Al Gore, currently the world’s most high-profile ‘green guru’, addressed the event.

Kerala-based BIOTECH won the Food Security Award for developing and installing over 12,000 biogas plants in homes across the state, which use food waste that is often left out in the open to rot. Over 160 of these plants -- which are used as cooking gas -- also use human waste from latrines, thereby avoiding groundwater contamination. And, 220 institutional plants and 17 municipal plants use waste from markets to power generators.

Disposal of food waste and production of clean energy are not the only benefits of BIOTECH’s initiative -- the plants also replace the equivalent of around 3.7 tonnes/day of LPG and diesel which, in turn, saves up to 3,700 tonnes/year of CO2, with further savings from the reduction in methane production as a result of uncontrolled decomposition of waste, and from transporting LPG.

Bangladesh’s Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha won the Education and Welfare Award for building a fleet of 88 boats powered by solar energy to bring education, training and renewable energy supplies to over 400,000 people living in the remote Chalanbeel region of the country.

A recent winner of the UNEP’s Equator Prize, Sangstha, set up in 1998, has also provided villagers with 13,500 solar home systems, 2,500 lanterns and 15,000 bicycle pumps that deliver between 60 and 100 litres of water per minute -- enough to irrigate half a hectare of land during the dry season.

Hande’s company SELCO, a 2005 Ashden honouree, is a private business committed to providing the highest quality solar energy services to poor people on financial terms they can afford. It won £ 15,000 and special praise from the Ashden Awards committee. SELCO used the money from its previous Ashden prize to build up an innovation department, establish new partnership arrangements with microfinance organisations, develop a five-year business plan with the aim of reaching an additional 200,000 customers by 2010, and set up a pilot fund to guarantee deposits on solar systems for very poor households.

In the words of the judges: “This visionary individual has demonstrated beyond a doubt that it is possible to run a renewable energy business which is both a striking commercial success and which lifts people out of poverty.”

The Beijing Shenzhou Daxu Bio-energy Technology Company Ltd emerged the winner of the Enterprise Award; the Light and Power Award was given to Sunlabob Renewable Energies Ltd from Laos; and Zara Solar Ltd from Tanzania won the Africa Award for providing high-quality, reliable solar home systems at affordable prices to communities in Africa lacking access to a reliable energy source.

In the Enterprise category, second prize went to the Centre for Rural Technology (CRT), Nepal, which has upgraded over 2,400 traditional water mills in the Himalayas since 2003, improving livelihoods for millers and mill-users and stemming pollution.

Indian project SKG Sangha took second place in the Food Security category, for improving the lives of rural communities in the state of Karnataka by supplying them dung-based biogas plants for cooking and a specially designed unit that turns slurry from biogas plants into high quality fertiliser. Projects from Peru, the Philippines and Ghana were other second-prize winners.

The top honours carry a cash prize of UK£ 30,000; second prize is UK£ 10,000.

The seven-year-old Ashden Awards, that honour innovative local solutions to energy challenges, also gives away four prizes to pioneering approaches from across the UK.

Source: InfoChange India