MSL Wins International Award

MSL proudly announces that it has won the Silver Award in the Smart Grid pillar of the 2022 Energy Smart Communities Initiative Best Practices Awards Program of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

The Energy Smart Communities Initiative (ESCI) was launched in November 2010 by the U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).  ESCI covers four main pillars—Smart Transport, Smart Buildings, Smart Grids, and Smart Jobs and Consumers—along with the cross-cutting examples of Low Carbon Model Towns.

The MSL award decision was made by the jury committee chaired by Dr. Terrence Surles, Consultant of Hawaii Natural Energy Institute along with jury members nominated by member economies of APEC Energy Working Group. This year, 65 projects from 17 APEC economies participated in the 2022 Energy Smart Communities Initiative Best Practices Awards Program. MSL is one of only two winners from the U.S. (with the City of Austin, TX), joined by those from Australia, China, Chile, Taiwan, and Canada. Criteria included innovativeness, inspiration, practicability, and replicability. The official winner announcement will be reported to the upcoming APEC Energy Working Group Meeting scheduled in late June 2022.

One of the components of ESCI is the Knowledge Sharing Platform (KSP), on which MSL now appears, a tool for collecting and sharing best practices for creating energy smart communities. The KSP, established at the EWG-41 meeting in Canada in May 2011, is designed to aid in cataloging and sharing information and best practices that are developed for ESCI’s areas of focus. It presents an opportunity for researchers, scientists, academics and the general public to learn, engage and share the latest in sustainability and energy efficiency.

The KSP has been produced by the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research with support from the National Development Council.