Introducing the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy for Local Authorities.
Over the last three years the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy have sought out local authorities that are leading in the design and implementation of ‘green’ energy solutions, and which provide schemes that are replicable and can be scaled up.
Benefits of winning an Ashden Award include:
- Prize money of up to £30,000.
- The chance to bring your sustainable energy solutions into the international arena.
- Continuing development support, where necessary.
- Engagement with key decision-makers in the sector.
- A documentary film about your award-winning work.
- International publicity.
The closing date for expressions of interest for the 2009 Awards is 28 October 2008.
The Ashden Awards have been working since 2002 to increase the use of local sustainable energy worldwide. They find, reward and publicise the work of leading sustainable energy programmes working across the developing world and in the UK.
Research commissioned by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) found that 10 of the winning programmes have achieved significant scale and deliver significant benefits for people and the environment: in 2008 they are reaching nine million people and saving 1.9 million tonnes of carbon emissions – equivalent to the total domestic emissions of more than 700,000 UK citizens.
In 2008, the winner in the local authority category was Leeds City Council, the second-largest local authority in the UK. Its Fuelsavers programme developed a strategy which has improved the energy efficiency of housing by over 21% since 1996. It currently helps 25,000 households per year, providing major insulation installations, improved heating and glazing upgrades. A new programme is providing home energy assessment visits to 32,000 homes. Improved energy metering and condensing boilers have been installed in council buildings, and a combined-heat-and-power unit at a sports centre.
Meanwhile Arun District Council, in West Sussex, won the second prize of £15,000, for improving energy efficiency in its own estate (using extensive metering, and behavioural campaigns in partnership with the trade union); in council housing (through a continuing upgrade policy that has reached 99% of homes); in houses with multiple occupants (through support to landlords and liaison with student groups); and in religious organisations (through the Ecofaith group). Specific council policies and the Arun Carbon Management Action Plan have led and coordinated this work.
Councillor Paul Dendle, Arun’s Cabinet Member for Central Services, said: “As a local authority we are under enormous pressure to tackle climate change while continuing to meet the needs of the community. This award shows what can be achieved with limited resources, thanks to the hard work of Council staff and our partner organisations and the willingness of our residents to make their properties more energy efficient.”
Some of the prize money will be used to further promote the excellent services the Council already offers, while the rest will go towards developing a Renewable Energy Support Service. This will offer information about the provision of sustainable energy for homes and businesses, in particular the use of solar energy and ground source heat pumps, a system that transfers heat from the ground into a building to heat the open spaces.
Past winner Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council demonstrates how an Ashden Award can provide stimulus and resources for completely new endeavours in the sustainable energy field. Barnsley’s Principal Designer (Building Services) and Energy Engineer Dick Bradford explains:
“The Awards stipulate that you must outline how you’ll use your winnings, and this really gave us space to think about a vision beyond our normal budgetary constraints and timelines. With this incentive we were able to invest in something innovative – to explore a project that was not only zero carbon in terms of emissions, but also could potentially provide a zero-cost-in-use solution.
“Over the last two years we have built a housing facility and community office that demonstrates how three technologies can be brought together to provide homes with sustainable energy at low-to-no cost. The idea is simple yet effective: underfloor heating into a conductive screed from an air-source heat pump powered by solar photo-voltaics (PV). The PV element has only been going since February, but already we’re seeing remarkable cost savings.”
What does it take to be a winner?
For a scheme to be eligible for an Ashden Award it must:
- Be up and running, delivering sustainable energy at a local level for at least one year.
- Benefit the environment.
- Be technically rigorous.
- Have an element of innovation.
- Make a genuine difference to local peoples’ lives, both socially and economically.
- Be replicable and help encourage the widespread uptake of local, sustainable energy.
