In Moscow, awarded the «Gold Lightning» - the main award in the field of distributed and alternative energy

On December 7 in Moscow, in the Congress Center of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, the VI International Award Ceremony "Small Energy - Great Achievements" was held. The prestigious award for the best project in the field of distributed and alternative energy was established by the Russian Association of Small Energy with the support of the business association "Business Russia", the Energy Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, and aroused great interest among specialized energy companies, business and government. Representatives of more than 50 finalist companies from Russia, Japan, Italy, Germany and the Republic of Belarus came to the Russian capital for the award ceremony. The event also included the awarding of the winners of the Energy of Youth All-Russian Competition of Youth Research Projects in the Energy Sector.

This year the organizing committee of the International Award "Small Energy - Great Achievements" received 90 applications from Russia, Japan, Italy, Germany and the Republic of Belarus. The geography of implemented projects this year for the first time crossed the Atlantic Ocean: distributed generation projects built in New York, in the Brazilian city of San Paolo, but most importantly - in dozens of Russian regions: from the Zabaikalsky Krai to the Kaliningrad Oblast. As Maxim Zagornov, the project organizer, president of the Russian Association of Small-scale Power Generation, noted in his welcoming speech, this shows that distributed power generation in Russia is developing dynamically. "In 2017, the total capacity of distributed generation facilities in Russia amounted to about 24 GW - this is more than 9% of the capacity of the entire energy system of the country," the expert emphasized.

Based on the results of the preliminary selection, 50 projects made it to the final round of the competition. They were studied in detail by the Expert Council of the award, which included leading specialists in the field of small-scale distributed power generation, market leaders, rectors of industry-specific universities, as well as prominent scientists. This year the Expert Council for the first time included Sergey Alekseenko, Head of the Laboratory of the Institute of Thermophysics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Laureate of the Global Energy International Prize 2018. In his welcoming speech, the scientist noted the important role of such professional competitions that allow to identify the best projects of the year and support scientific developments in the field of energy. Sergey Vladimirovich emphasized that technological novelty of the project, economic effect, impact on the development of the industry, architectural and engineering aesthetics of the project were taken into account when identifying the winning projects.

According to the results of the total counting of votes of the Expert Council members, the winner in the first nomination - "The best project in the field of small-scale power engineering with the capacity up to 5 MW" - was the Belarusian company ODO "ODO" ODO "Small-scale Power Engineering". - was the Belarusian company ODO ENEKA. It submitted two biogas complexes in Brest region with the capacity of 1 and 2 MW. The plants produce biogas by anaerobic digestion of manure. They provide an independent source of electricity and heat in rural areas. They solve a serious environmental problem with accumulation, storage and utilization of agricultural waste. The award - a statuette "Golden Lightning" and an honorary diploma - was presented to Vitaliy Lysenko, Deputy Director, Head of Alternative Energy Department of ODO ENEKA.

In the second nomination - "The best project in the field of small-scale power engineering with a capacity of 5 MW or more" - the Golden Lightning statuette went to the Italian company AB Group (AB), which submitted the Caieiras LFG power center in Sao Paolo (Brazil). As AB Group representative Danil Kurganov noted after receiving the award, the 29.5 MW facility is currently one of the world's largest sources of biogeneration, as well as an example of not only technological innovations, but also a reasonable solution to environmental problems of the metropolis. The city of San Paolo, with a population of 13 million people, accumulates 12 thousand tons of waste in the landfill every day. The Caieiras Energy Center made it possible to recycle about 300 thousand tons of carbon dioxide per year, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

The third nomination - "The Best Alternative Energy Project" - was the most intense competition. There were 13 finalist projects competing for the award. However, a joint Russian-Japanese project - a wind farm in the Yakutian village of Tiksi, commissioned a month ago by PJSC RusHydro (Russia) and Komaihaltec Inc (Japan) - won the award by a large margin of votes. The 900 kW wind farm includes three towers with a height of 42 meters. The equipment is specially designed for the extreme conditions of the Polar region - the equipment can work even in 50-degree frost and can withstand storm winds. The award - two Golden Lightning statuettes and an honorary diploma - from the hands of project organizer Maxim Zagornov and member of the Expert Council of the award, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Alekseenko were received by Deputy General Director - Director of the Far East Division of PJSC RusHydro Sergey Vasiliev and Vice President of Komaihaltec Inc Ms. Komai Emi.

In the fourth nomination - "Innovative Development in the Energy Sector" - for the first time in the history of the Award, two contestants won with an equal number of votes. This is ANO National Center for Engineering Contests and Competitions, which submitted the Ekovolna catamaran - the first Russian innovative water transport powered by electric motors and solar batteries. The catamaran, created entirely from domestic components, in the spring and summer of this year passed its first large-scale expedition from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea, more than 5000 km through 20 regions of Russia within 100 days, without using internal combustion engines, and therefore without polluting the environment. The Golden Lightning statuette was presented to Evgeny Kazanov, Director of ANO NC IKS.

The fourth nomination was also won by South Ural State University, which offered its solution to the problem of energy storage, one of the 12 global problems of mankind. Scientists of the Faculty of Energy have developed an electric energy storage device based on the technology of methanol production from water and air carbon dioxide. According to Sergey Gandzha, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Head of the Department of Theoretical Bases of Electrical Engineering at the SUSU Faculty of Energy, the novelty of the project was that the proposed project combined five technological processes into a single chain - no one in the world has ever done this.

Hevel Group of Companies won an unqualified victory in the last two nominations - "Investor of the Year in the Energy Sector" and "For Contribution to Industry Development". From 2015 to 2018, the company commissioned 16 grid-connected solar power plants with a total capacity of 169 MW in various regions of Russia: the Republics of Altai, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Orenburg, Saratov, Volgograd and Astrakhan regions. In the last two years alone, the total investment in the implemented projects amounted to RUB 51.7 billion. Since 2017, after modernizing the production line at the plant in Novocheboksarsk, the company has started producing solar modules using fundamentally new hetero-structural technology. Igor Shakhrai, General Director of Avelar Solar Technology LLC, the managing organization of Hevel LLC - Avelar Solar Technology LLC, received the "Golden Lightning" statuette from the hands of the project organizer Maxim Zagornov and Deputy Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs' Rights Alexander Khurudzhi.

Summarizing the results of the ceremony, Maxim Zagornov, President of the Russian Small Energy Association, noted that this year the level of competitive projects was very high. "All 2018 projects met the high competitive criteria, they used advanced technologies for the industry, anticipated trends, found successful technological solutions. I am sure that in this competition the winners were, first of all, the industry of distributed and alternative generation itself. After all, the development of this energy sector is possible only through the exchange of experience, technology, and communication," said Maxim Zagornov.

The event also included the awarding of the winners of the Energy of Youth All-Russian Competition of Youth Research Projects in the field of energy. The winners were: I.A. Evdokimov for the project "Development of Self-Removing Shutoff Elements of Hydraulic Fracturing Coupling Used in Hydrocarbon Production by Multistage Hydraulic Fracturing"; Y.N. Luponosov for the project "Translucent and Flexible Solar Batteries Based on New Organic Materials with Increased Stability"; S.S. Fedotov for the project "Development of Potassium-Ion Battery Based on Polyanionic Electrode Materials". Each winner of the Energy of Youth competition received an honorary diploma and a grant of 1 million rubles to continue their research.

The organizers of the International Award "Small Energy - Great Achievements" thank the General Partners of the project: MKS Group of Companies and MWM Austria Gmbh.