Credit: @Nola Visuals
On Tuesday 19 September 2023, Eurosolar Lëtzebuerg asbl held the eleventh Luxembourg Solar Prize ceremony at the Chamber of Skilled Trades and Crafts.
The ceremony was organised in collaboration with the Chamber of Skilled Trades and Crafts, Luxembourg’s Ministry of Energy and Spatial Planning, the Environment Agency, the Luxembourg Federation of Technical Engineering, Valentiny hvp Architects, the Klima-Agence and the Luxembourg Center for Architecture (luca).
This year, the Luxembourg solar prize was awarded to the following four projects:
● Marcel Barros’ campaign to raise awareness of young people and adults about renewable energies for more than ten years. (Category: Education and Training);
● XXA Architecture with their school and Maison Relais project at Howald Couvent (Category: New Circular Economy);
● The Lycée Agricole Gilsdorf’s Public Building Administration project (Category: New Circular Economy);
● Copal Belle Boutique SA with their Energy Community Shopping Center project. They use ultra-light panels and have created a cooperative to allow tenants to use the energy produced directly (Category: Business and industrial companies).
Six special mentions were awarded to the following projects:
● ISFB with their “Emergency” Box, showing the flexibility and simplicity of solar energy produced and used locally (Category: Associations and local communities);
● The LTEtt with their photovoltaic panels (PV) installation on their sports hall, in collaboration with the students on their own initiative (2021: Parking um Däich, Wind register, etc.) (Category: Education and Training);
● Enovos and Tarkett Group with their bifacial solar system project on carport. This photovoltaic installation allows large-scale production (Category: Business and industrial companies);
● Enerdeal with their Ceratizit carport project in Mamer. An already sealed surface for the parking lot was used to produce energy (Category: Business and industrial companies);
● Prefalux with their Prefalux Coop project, which produces electricity for their offices. After the end of the work, the injection rate is estimated at 83% (Category: Business and industrial companies);
● The Municipal Administration of Betzdorf with their Agri-PV project on Rothoicht, who covered their buildings with solar panels in a short time, allowing considerable production. (Category: Cities, municipalities and public utilities).
More than 150 people, including Luxembourg’s Minister for Housing, Henri Kox, and the Minister for Energy, Claude Turmes, MPs, many players in the field of renewable energies and construction, members of Eurosolar Lëtzebuerg asbl and the candidates who submitted their projects, attended the ceremony.
After the awards ceremony, Prof Volker Quaschning, professor of regenerative energy systems at HTW (Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft) in Berlin, spoke about the potential, the many possible applications and other means of renewable energy. The event closed with a reception and networking.
Minister Turmes said: “I applaud all the winners of the 2023 Luxembourg Solar Prize. The projects are of high quality, and a source of inspiration for other stakeholders. Photovoltaic energy constitutes an important element in the fight against climate change, and these projects have shown once again that all stakeholders - citizens, businesses, municipalities and even schools - are ready to participate in the development of renewable energies.”
Paul Zens, president of Eurosolar Lëtzebuerg Asbl, added: “The 2023 Solar Prize vintage shows once again that the energy transition is making great strides.The winners and their projects, as different as they may seem, highlight that these changes in energy systems, at the production level and also with regard to efforts to wisely manage resources, are complementary in their diversity and form a unified whole through their interaction. […] It is important to continue to communicate and explain their potential and their beneficial effects for all of us.”
