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A small Māori family-owned energy company Māui Energy has won the grand prize in a global philanthropic campaign to address social or environmental issues launched by Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade.
Māui Energy's winning proposal 'Solar Solutions for Indigenous Māori Communities' was announced as the winner of the 'Taiwan Excellence: Sharing is Caring' campaign on Saturday through an international press conference led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs Taiwan.
“We were blown way that we had won, we all kind of looked at each other because we weren’t sure if we heard it right… we were all a bit in shock to be honest” Marareia Hamilton, one of the team members of the winning proposal, said in a statement.
Hamilton has long been devoted to the development of Māori communities and helped establish workable business models for the local marae and hapū.
“This is a huge help to our project. We have been working on renewable energy projects for just over a year and have been investigating the feasibility of solar farms on Māori owned land and how we can deliver direct benefits to Māori communities, she said.
“As many of the Māori communities are located in remote areas, the power supply, affordability and stability can be a significant issue. Thus the team has proposed to install a renewable energy farm using solar panels from Taiwan and to build a self-sustaining green energy power generation system to service these communities.”
Māui Energy have partnered with Platinum Power, a Northland Māori-owned energy retailer and construction company who have been developing wind turbine technology to execute the project. Both organisations have aspirations to develop a green energy hub within the north to achieve our environmental and social outcomes.
“We felt it was a natural fit for us,” said Hamilton.
Cynthia Kiang, Director General of Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade, virtually presented certificates to the winners during an awards ceremony on Saturday.
“We could feel that love and care are everywhere in the world,” Kiang said.
The winning proposal will be funded an initial $10,000USD and a further $150,000USD to implement the ideas.
The competition held internationally for the first time, saw 781 proposals from 61 countries around the world pitching ideas that incorporated Taiwan excellence winning products to address social or environmental issues.