UN Foundation’s Sustainable Energy for All

Good Afternoon!

Having to type quietly today as the Wimbledon final is on at the moment and the match between Federer and Murray is close.  However, yesterday was also interesting for a different reason, we received the hard copy of the report from the UN Foundation’s Sustainable Energy for All report by the Energy Access Practitioners Network, which is entitled Towards Achieving Universal Energy Access by (2030http://bit.ly/LoCjXQ). An inspiring look at what renewable energy can do to support sustainable energy and social economic access in remote areas of the world.

What was really exciting, was to see IRECO (International Renewable Energy Certification Organisation) mentioned as one of the leading organisations going to provide certification of products and installers.  Gideon our CEO started up IRECO with Reza Shaybani, Chairman of the BPVA (British Photovoltaic Association) in April this year after they had been in discussions with a number of countries about setting up  certification for them.  Gideon was very keen that this didn’t happen as separate schemes would, he believes, not support global deployment of renewable energy or the installer network (thankfully Reza agreed).  So within a couple of weeks of deciding to set up the organisation, talking it through with the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Minister – Greg Barker and getting his support for using the MCS framework which DECC owns, Gideon and Reza went to the Clean Energy Ministerial and launched the concept.

This is where Gideon met Richenda Van Leeuwen, Executive Director, Energy and Climate, Energy Access Initiative, United Nations Foundation, who casually said that they should talk when she got back to Washington, after hearing what IRECO intended to do.

Gideon was asked to explain IRECO to the Standards Working Group within the Energy Access Practitioners Network and has now been asked to present at the full Energy Access Practitioner Network meeting, which is a telephone conference call open to all the 500+ registered practitioners.  This is likely to happen in the next few months.

In the meantime IRECO will be putting a lot of effort into put the finance in place, with major support setting up the scheme governance, structure and documentation from the CWP team who have probably more experience of the overall certification scheme process, with Gideon Chairing the MCS Steering Group and Interim CEO having seen it through from MCS’s foundation and Tanya leading for CWP on UKAS accreditation.

But CWP won’t forget our other commitments and clients who we will be working hard to support at the same time.

Nicola is developing a real skill in leading planning applications for wind turbine submissions and getting to grips with Windfarm Software.  Our BioMaxEff European Framework 7 project has just completed its first year and we are hoping to start field monitoring of the small pellet boilers under normal operating conditions and our report for IRENA has slowed due to Gideon being ill, but hopefully should be completed and published soon.

So with another week about to start and more rain threatened again for the week ahead; after flooding last week all over the country, CWP will carry on doing its bit to support renewable energy deployment and climate remediation.

Have a good week! CWP