The Centre for Renewable Energy Nepal has won second prize at the international Ashden Award for sustainable energy. Lumin Shrestha, director of CRTN received the award from former US Vice President Al Gore in the Royal Geographical Society in London on Friday.

CRTN won the Enterprise Award for upgrading over 2,400 traditional water mills in Nepal since 2003, helping improve the livelihoods of almost 100,000 households. The centre plans to use the ?10,000 prize money to use the prize money to develop a low cost means of generating electricity with a simple magnet alternator using a short shaft water mill that charges batteries that can be used for household lighting purposes. CRTN is supported by the Alternate Energy Promotion Centre and SNV-Nepal.

The Ashden awards are given in appreciation of efforts to use sustainable energy to improve access to light, power, food, education, and welfare, and to promote enterprise.

CRTN shares second prize with India's SKG Sangha, which won the Food Security Award category for improving the lives of rural communities in Karnataka by using dung based biogas plants for cooking.

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