Martin Wright/Ashden Awards
DCL
We've covered the Ashden Awards before because they find and bring attention to technologies around the world that are helping to drive a sustainable energy revolution.
They've highlighted various cookstove technologies that replace or cut down on firewood and charcoal use and other innovations that are helping to decrease the global dependence on fossil fuels and resources that encourage deforestation.
They've just announced the latest round of winners, and the solar lantern [PDF] from India-based D.Light Design is among them.
Called the Kiran, it is not only (in the company's words) the world's most affordable solar lamp, but it is four times brighter than kerosene lamps, which in India and many places where there is likely to be demand for this kind of technology, is the most common sources of light.
From the Ashden Awards announcement:
Each year 1.6 million women and children die as a result of indoor air pollution, much of it from kerosene lamps. But for the 1.6 billion people across the world without electricity there has been little alternative. D.Light has provided that alternative thanks to a cheap, reliable solar lamp. Over 220,000 units have already been sold in over thirty countries via a network of rural entrepreneurs. As one of these entrepreneurs says, "this will do to kerosene what mobile phones did to letters".
Check out the other Ashden Awards 2010 winners—they span the globe and availability of renewable resources, from solar to hydro to biogas.
