Award winners of the European Solar Prize 2016 honored in Barcelona
EUROSOLAR e.V. together with EUROSOLAR Spain and Barcelona City Council awarded nine nominees, in seven categories, from eight different countries with the European Solar Prize 2016. Having previously been held in Rome and Prague, this year’s award ceremony took place in the historical builings of the former hospital ‘Sant Pau’ in Barcelona – a city committed to sustainable energy.
In the additional symposium consens was found, that the implementation of a common political framework for a ‘Renewable Energy Union’ has to focus on the different national, regional and local needs and must aim at ambitious renewable energy targets. Outdated conventional structures and the gigantic subsidies for fossil and nuclear energy have to be overcome. The realization of a sustainable energy system is urgently necessary and already numerous actors show how renewable energy can successfully being used.
EURSOLAR president Professor Peter Droege declared in his welcome speech: “These brilliant initiatives and their authors augur a new age with powerful messages for Europe. Renewables represent the essential infrastructure for peaceful coexistence, social justice and proserity, helping stem global climate refugee streams, and helping to avoid the worst of global warming.”
The European Solar Prize honors towns, companies, organizations, cooperatives and private persons who are taking the matter of the renewable energy transition in their own hands. The outstanding award winners give an impressive account of the ability to shape a sustainable future with their own power, finances and will to succeed in the current political, economic and societal boundaries – leading to a ‘Renewable Energy Union’.
Source:eurosolar
