Green Energy Champion: On Improving Sri Lanka’s Renewable Development

Spearheading in the context of innovative sustainable developments in Sri Lanka, the Green Energy Champion competition, in its third successive year is seeking to promote the use of renewable energy concepts for the purpose of improving lives of a wider community. A grand prize of LKR 4 Million (inclusive of technical equipment and training) awaits the winners for 2019 to further implement their green energy innovations as proposed.

In response to the competition’s launch in 2016, Ananda College Colombo emerged winners for their installation of a PV-system, the upgrading of the school’s composting system and the introduction of a waste management system.

After a very successful first round that reached 700,000 media users, the Green Energy Champion saw over 80 green energy ideas submitted by individuals, local government institutions, and other organisations in 2017 with Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA) receiving a grand prize worth of 10 million LKR (58,000 EUR). In their proposal, SLIDA essentially developed a biogas unit, a PV- system installation and an urban compost garden.

This year too, the competition was launched by the German Federal Office in collaboration with the Ministry of Power, Energy and Business Development of Sri Lanka, and the project implementing partners, GIZ and the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority.

With the support of Janathakshan (GTE) Limited, proposal writing workshops for applicants were organised recently in all 9 Provinces of Sri Lanka in order to provide guidance on conceptualizing and proposal development. Participation in the writing shops is not mandatory for the competition and any other interested individuals/ groups/ institutions that did not attend the workshops are invited to send in their ideas. Applications can be submitted either in Sinhala, Tamil or English until 30 April 2019 at the campaign’s website www.greenenergychampion.lk.

 All proposals will be reviewed by a jury panel comprising of the German Embassy, Sri Lankan energy authorities and experts, and GIZ. A winner from the three categories Public Sector Institutions, Private Sector Entities and Civil Society will be contacted directly and publicly announced in the websites’ news section and social media pages.

Scoring criteria for proposal submissions are as follows:

• Relevant to sustainable energy solutions. (20%)
• Should address an existing issue or challenge and suggests a solution or an improvement of such. (15%)
• Financially manageable ensuring accurate project expenses. (20%)
• Should be feasible in order to set duration and tasks. (20%)
• Acknowledged by the affected society and environment. (10%)

Able to maintain sustainable impact and display long-term solution. (15%)