Community energy’s “TripAdvisor” to award best contributor to sustainable energy future

05/12/2016

Citizenergy platform hands 2016 Project of the Year Award voting to the crowd in celebration of first year online

Frankfurt, 5 December 2016. What gets funded by the crowd should also get judged by the crowd. Today marks the official start of a one week voting period for the Citizenergy 2016 Project of the Year Award. Until 12 December, members of the public will be able to rate renewable and energy efficiency projects featured on Citizenergy on the basis of their contribution to a sustainable energy future.

The award celebrates Citizenergy’s first year online. The portal has shown considerable growth in the last several months: over 23 crowdfunding platforms and energy cooperatives from 12 European countries now feature their projects on Citizenergy. Launched by 13 organisations across Europe with support from the European Union, it is the first portal of its kind to promote cross-border investment in community energy and the first to bring the crowdfunding and cooperatives worlds together in one space.

“People across the developed world are expressing an increasing desire to have a say over both their energy supply and the type of future their investments are supporting – sustainable energy cooperatives and crowdfunding projects are increasingly filling this gap,” affirms Nuno Brito Jorge, founder of Boa Energia, a Portuguese PV installer. “Citizenergy is helping make this possible on a pan-European scale.” “Each of the 14 candidate projects for the 2016 Project of the Year Award stands as an example of how people are taking control of their energy future,” asserts Robert Pasicko of the UN Development Programme Croatia. The organisation will be partnering with Boa Energia to run and maintain the portal once the EU funding period comes to an end in March 2017.

The Citizenergy team pre-selected candidate projects featured in Citizenergy’s first year on the basis of their novelty as well as criteria such as energy saved and/or produced, involvement of community, adaptation to local needs and conditions, contribution to energy independence and social aspects. Among other benefits, winners of the award will receive the chance to speak at the European Parliament at a special event next year.

Winners of the Citizenergy 2016 Project of the Year award will be officially announced in January 2017.

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