The Centre for Renewable Energy Nepal has won second prize at the international Ashden Award for sustainable energy for its work improving 2,400 water mills ('Wheels of change', #354). Lumin Shrestha, director of CRTN received the Enterprise Award from former US Vice President Al Gore in the Royal Geographical Society in London last Friday. The four-year-old water mills program has already helped improve the livelihoods of almost 100,000 households.

The centre plans to use the ?10,000 prize money to develop a low cost means of generating electricity with a simple magnet alternator using a short shaft water mill to charges batteries that can be used for household lighting purposes. CRTN is supported by the Alternate Energy Promotion Centre and SNV-Nepal.&