Solarcentury at Poznan

Solarcentury, who won an Ashden Award in 2007, joined with other solar companies and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at Poznan to encourage rapid expansion of the use of solar PV technology to combat climate change, as reported by Your Renewables News.

Their proposal included:

• Stringent, ambitious, international and national carbon regulation policies
• Enforceable renewables mandates with a solar carve out or credit multiplier for solar energy
• Near-term incentives that could include feed-in tariffs, partial rebates, tax credits and/or property-based loans
• Favorable net metering, interconnection, permitting and land-use policies.

Jeremy Leggett, Executive Chairman of Solarcentury, said: "As a European leader in building-integrated solar, Solarcentury expects to see buildings routinely becoming power plants in the years ahead, generating all their own electricity and heating needs in situ, and often more than they need, making them net exporters of energy. With the right partners in the construction industry, we can put up zero-emissions buildings in a matter of weeks: not the years that conventional power plants require. We are seeing some excellent progress with European support, particularly with the incentive of strong feed-in tariffs, but we need very much more."

Read the full story here.

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Ashden Awards at COP14 in Poznan, Poland

With all of the important but rather abstract climate policy discussions that are going on in Poznan this week for the UNFCCC climate change conference (COP14), you’ll be happy to hear that delegates will have the chance to see some real sustainable energy technologies, thanks to the Ashden Awards!

We were invited by the Polish Ministry of the Environment to display models of Ashden Award winning technologies, alongside information about how the technologies have been applied by our winners. These exhibits have included improved cooking stoves (GERES, Kisangani Smith Group, Gaia Association and Aprovecho Research Centre), a ram pump (AID Foundation), a solar home system (Grameen Shakti) and a treadle pump (International Development Enterprises India).

I went out to set them up and they are sitting happily next to hydrogen cars and other futuristic hi-tech gadgets – hopefully as a reminder that these programmes are already delivering social, economic and environmental benefits for millions of people – and need to be rolled out to many more millions. Photos to follow...

Ben Dixon

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