ACCIONA receives the SERES Award 2012 for its initiative to take electricity to remote areas of Peru

By December, 1,300 Peruvian families will have benefitted from the "Light in the Home" project, a self-financing electricity-supply system based on PV solar panels.

The Vice-Chairman of ACCIONA, Juan Ignacio Entrecanales, collected the Award from the Prince and Princess of Asturias.

ACCIONA has been honored with the SERES Award 2012 in recognition of the ACCIONA Microenergy Foundation's "Light in the Home" project which, for the past two years, has been supplying basic electricity services to 610 households in remote rural communities in Peru's Cajamarca region, using domestic solar PV systems. The initiative is expected to cover 1,300 households by end-2012 and there are plans to service a total 3,000 families next year.

The SERES Foundation is made up of 84 large companies and four business schools. This is the third year of the Foundation's annual awards and on this occasion the panel of judges took into account the innovative and socially committed character of the "Light in the Home" program, as well as ACCIONA's efforts to make the program economically sustainable by ensuring its economic viability without any need to rely on the Company's support. These efforts have reaped their rewards: the InterAmerican Development Bank recently allocated one million dollars in financing to guarantee the program's solidity.

This helps to ensure that "Light in the Home" is a long-lasting program based on clean and renewable energy and with a business model that helps channel profits back to end-users.

The award, which was presented by the Prince and Princess of Asturias, was collected by ACCIONA vice-chairman Juan Ignacio Entrecanales. In his acceptance speech Mr. Entrecanales underlined the fact that the "Light in the Home" program made it clear that renewable energies "make it possible to take electricity to where it there are no plans to extend the grid and, more importantly, it does so in a sustainable manner".  

The ACCIONA vice-chairman also emphasized that taking electricity to the remote rural communities had improved their quality of life. "It's done away with health risks such breathing in smoke from candles and kerosene lamps, helped youngsters to do their homework, eliminated safety hazards such as oil-lamp flames, made them a part of the global community by giving them access to information and communication technologies, and raised their economic status by giving them more productive hours at a lower cost and with better lighting".

As well as ACCIONA, Seres awards went to Accenture, for their "Skills to Succeed" project; BBVA for its "Momentum Project" program, and Endesa for its "Molino de Papel" (literally "Paper Mill") social and environmental initiative.