I attended the amazing Zayed Future Energy Prize Awards Ceremony tonight (for the second year in a row). The Zayed Future Energy Prize Awards Ceremony is sort of like the Academy Awards of cleantech — quite a show. This year, the event actually included a performance from The Human Orchestra, which has performed at the Academy Awards. Following a few performances, we got into the cleantech fun, with video presentations about each of the finalists
The finalists were each quite exceptional, as always. They were divided into several categories — large corporations, small & medium enterprises, nonprofits, and schools from different regions of the world. Very quickly, I’ll run down the list of finalists and winners. In coming days, I’ll follow up on some of the finalists and will hopefully be able to share the videos summarizing each of them.
2014 Zayed Future Energy Prize Winners
Lifetime Achievement Award
Wang Chuanfu — a very successful Chinese chemist and the founder of BYD Company, won this year’s ZFEP Lifetime Achievement Award, which comes with a cool $500,000. Wang founded BYD when he was only 29 years old. (Check out our BYD archives for information on the company’s EV leadership.)
Heads of ABB, Fraunhofer, and BYD
Large Corporations
Winner = ABB* (Check out our ABB archives for numerous stories on ABB’s cleantech leadership.)
At a press conference following the awards ceremony, I had the opportunity to talk with ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer a bit. Regarding solar topics, not much was added beyond what I covered in a number of exclusive articles and videos in November, and I didn’t record that part anyway. However, I did record some great comments on electricity storage and electric vehicles. Here’s the video:
Here’s a story on the flash-charging bus ABB has developed. There were a few more statements from Ulrich that were very interesting. I’ll come back to those in a future article.
Small & Medium Enterprise
- Selco India
- Clean Power Finance
- EcoNation
- Abellon CleanEnergy
Winner = Abellon CleanEnergy
Nonprofits
- Fraunhofer
- Practical Action
- World Resources Institute
Winner = Fraunhofer
Schools
Americas
- Manhattan Comprehensive Night & Day High School (USA)
- Colegio Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Peru)
- Bronx Design & Construction Academy (USA)
Winner = Bronx Design & Construction Academy
Europe
- Queen Elizabeth II High School (Isle of Man)
- Gheorghe Rosca Codreanu National College (Romania)
Winner = Gheorghe Rosca Codreanu National College
Africa
- Abaarse School of Science and Technology (Somalia)
- Nkhata Bay School Authority (Malawi)
Winner = Nkhata Bay School Authority (Malawi)
Asia
- Kalkeri Sangeet Vidyalaya (India)
Winner = Kalkeri Sangeet Vidyalaya
Oceania
- Urrbrae Agricultural High School (Australia)
- Tonga High School (Tonga)
Winner = Tonga High School
Disclosures:
1) My attendance at the Zayed Future Energy Prize Awards Ceremony was part of my participation in Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, which is provided courtesy of Masdar.
2) I occasionally write for ABB Conversations.
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
