The founder of Himin Solar, Huang Ming has been named one of the four winners of the 2011 Right Livelihood Awards, known informally as the alternative Nobel prize. According to the Swedish-based foundation that gives the award, he was honored for “his outstanding success in the development and mass-deployment of cutting-edge technologies for harnessing solar energy, thereby showing how dynamic emerging economies can contribute to resolving the global crisis of anthropogenic climate change.”

A REEEP-funded project in Brazil has produced a Portuguese publication on solar water heating (SWH) systems, designed to raise awareness of the technology and its potential.

China’s existing buildings have an area in excess of 43 billion square metres. Most of them have poor insulation properties and less efficient heating/air conditioning systems than is the case with buildings in developed countries.