Sri Lanka's Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy, together with the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the project implementing partner Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and supporting partners Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority and The Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association (SLEMA) launched the Green Energy Champion Sri Lanka initiative.
The program is a country-wide competition identifying and recognizing innovative ideas on improving energy efficiency and encouraging the use of renewable energy in Sri Lanka.
Deputy Minister of Power and Renewable Energy Ajith P. Perera and German Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives Dr. Jürgen Morhard participated in the launch.
The project aims to conduct a country-wide campaign in order to raise public awareness of energy conservation and to boost energy innovation in Sri Lanka. Part of the campaign is a competition which seeks to identify a blueprint "Green Energy Champion" who would become a show case for sustainable and clean energy solutions. The winning entry would be entitled to EUR 30,000 (Rs. 4.7 million) and technical expertise for the implementation of the awarded project proposal.
Ambassador Morhard said, "Transforming the way we generate and consume electricity is an essential step to mitigate or even stop climate change. Consequently, it will be a step to safeguard the natural beauty of Sri Lanka. The Green Energy Champion Sri Lanka campaign will raise the awareness of energy conservation and it will hopefully trigger people to come up with innovative renewable energy ideas for their communities."
The briefing also saw the launch of www.greenenergychampion.lk, a web site dedicated to the campaign, and a medium for the public to gain access to the application form, tips how to save energy at home and other valuable information on the subject of renewable energy.
Sri Lanka has excellent conditions for using solar energy, biomass and wind energy. It has almost fully exploited its hydropower capacities, so the government is exploring other electricity generation options. Expanding the supply of energy for the growing demand of Sri Lanka's economy is expensive and time-consuming. In contrast, improving energy efficiency puts downward pressure on energy prices while reducing the country's reliance on energy imports and emissions of carbon dioxide, a harmful greenhouse gas.
