STOCKHOLM, Sweden, October 9, 2007.
A renewable energy company in Bangladesh has been named a winner of the
2007 ‘Right Livelihood Award,’ sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’
Grameen Shakti was honoured for its work in promoting solar energy among
rural homes in Bangladesh. The company was created in 1996 under the Grameen
Bank, which was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with its leader, Muhammad
Yunus, for efforts to help the poor through micro-credits.
Four winners will share the US$310,000 award, which was founded by a
Swedish-German philanthropist to recognize work he felt was being ignored by
the prestigious Nobel Prizes. The ‘Right Livelihood Award’ has no specific
categories, and organizers explain that the work of most Laureates
integrates multiple aspects and any classification is necessarily imperfect.
The other three winners are Christopher Weeramantry of Sri Lanka for his
work in international law; Dekha Ibrahim Abdi of Kenya for settling
differences in diverse ethnic and cultural situations; and Percy & Louise
Schmeiser of Canada for their work in biodiversity and farmers' rights.
Grameen Shakti, under managing director Dipal Barua, has installed 110,000
solar home systems in rural Bangladesh. “It has shown that solar energy
applications can be scaled up massively and rapidly to provide an affordable
and climate-friendly energy option for the rural poor,” the citation
explains.
Grameen Shakti (shakti means ‘energy’ in Bengali) was created to promote and
supply renewable energy technology at an affordable rate to rural homes. The
work focuses both on technical and capacity-building sides of renewable
energy promotion, and the company has adopted the Grameen Bank's experience
in micro financing to make renewable energy applications affordable for poor
rural people.
The company employs 1,500 field staff and has trained 1,000 engineers and
1,000 local technicians in renewable energy technology, who work either for
Grameen Shakti or have started their own renewable energy firm. Dipal Barua
was a co-founder of the Grameen Bank.
It has built a network of 390 village unit offices, in all of Bangladesh's
64 districts, to reach rural areas where 70% of the country's 135 million
inhabitants live. Through village offices, Grameen Shakti promotes solar
home systems and other green power technologies, using a small 30 to 100 W
photovoltaic panel connected to a battery.
The 110,000 solar home systems have a capacity of 5 MW peak, installed in
30,000 villages. The installation rate is growing exponentially, with plans
to reach 1 million installations in 2015, officials note.
Currently, 4,000 solar home systems are being installed each month, and four
windfarms, 1,000 biogas plants and three solar thermal projects have been
installed, while nine solar-powered computer training centres have been
created. The biogas program is linked to the poultry and livestock industry
in Bangladesh, with a focus on market slurry as a replacement for chemical
fertiliser.
Grameen Shakti has started a network of technology centres which are managed
mainly by women engineers, who train women as solar technicians. The women
are equipped with tools to service and repair PV systems and to manufacture
solar home system accessories. Seven technology centres are in operation,
with plans to expand to 30 centres and to train 2,000 women technicians.
Solar home systems replace kerosene lamps, and avoid the fumes and risk of
fire. Each SHS saves 375 kg of CO2 per year and system owners save Tk 400 to
500 (US$6 to $7.50) per month on kerosene. The systems have significant
income-generating potential, and have led to increased production in
fishing, rice processing, poultry farming and handicraft. There are 10,000
micro-utility lights operating in rural market places.
Grameen Shakti received the European Solar Award in 2003 and the Ashden
Award for Sustainable Energy in 2006. Hermann Scheer of Eurosolar, a 1999
recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, says “Grameen Shakti has pioneered
ways to create awareness for solar energy, brought significant changes to
the quality of life of rural people, and is achieving its overall goal to
alleviate poverty in Bangladesh.”
Founded in 1980, the Right Livelihood Award Foundation is a charity
registered in Sweden. It is politically independent and a non-ideological
platform, with partner organisations in the United States, Germany, and
Switzerland.
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