The Ashden Awards are kind of the Green Oscars for renewable energy. They have some cool stuff on their website like resources for primary schools to explore sustainable energy sources based on companies/organisations around the world that are actually making it happen. (I don’t agree with their conclusions regarding human-caused global warming however). I really like the 2006 winners Grameen Shakti who have now installed a total of 150,000 solar home systems in Bangladesh and have supported some of their technicians (mostly women) to become independent entrepreneurs.
They do this through a Grameen Technology Center program where they train women on renewable energy technologies and help them to set up their own businesses. These women have set up their own businesses at home and at market places assembling and marketing solar accessories.
Selco India summarises nicely what is required to make ‘green’ energy systems work … make ‘em real easy to use basically. “(We) must provide not only needed energy solar systems to customers, but also the necessary customer information, installation, training, financing, and other products and services in order to develop a sustainable sales and service infrastructure.”
What we need are “Green Energy McDonalds” franchises … strong systems that are very easy to teach and to implement, and are transportable to any cultural context.
