Germany’s sonnen is among the winners of the 2017 Zayed Future Energy Prize, taking out the Small/Medium Enterprise (SME) category.
Sonnen CEO Christop Ostermann accepted the award and US$1.5 million prize purse during the opening ceremony of the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.
The $4 million Zayed Future Energy Prize was created in 2008 by General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, in honor of his late father’s vision for such an award.
The prize is awarded annually to a large corporation, an SME, a non-profit, a lifetime achievement recipient and up to five high schools from different regions around the world.
The Zayed Future Energy Prize “aims to inspire the next generation of global energy innovators – creating solutions we can barely imagine today.”
Sonnen is the first German company to win the SME category. Previous winners from Germany in other categories have been Siemens (large corporation category) and Fraunhofer ISE (non-profit category).
It won’t come as a surprise that sonnen is very pleased with the win.
“This shows that our corporate goal for a clean and affordable energy future as well as our innovative power is recognized internationally at the highest level, ” (translated) said Mr. Ostermann.
The Prize adds to a rapidly growing list of awards and accolades for sonnen.
In October last year, sonnen was included in MIT Technology Review’s “50 Smartest Companies 2016” list. The company was also listed in the Cleantech Global 100 for 2015 and 2016, won Greentech Media’s 2016 Grid Edge Award for innovation, and Cleantech’s 2015 Company of the Year Award in Israel and Europe.
A report last year noted sonnen was leading Germany’s home battery sector and has already become popular in Australia as an energy storage option for new solar power systems and retrofits.
Sonnen’s flagship product – sonnenBatterie Eco – is an all-in-one battery solution that takes a modular approach to home energy storage. Capacity can be added in 2kWh increments up to 16kWh, without the inbuilt inverter requiring an upgrade. Sonnen also offers a market-leading 10,000 cycle/10 year warranty.
