Bright light shines on Rothschild and GE Energy in Clean Power Markets

London, Halo Energy, 26 September 2005 – One of the oldest and most distinguished City institutions, Rothschild, emerged as the winner of the Bank of the Year renewable energy finance award. The prestigious industry award, presented for the second year by Euromoney and Ernst & Young, emphasises the growing importance of the private sector in delivering clean and secure indigenous energy supplies today and for future generations, particularly at a time when technologies mature and carbon constraints begin to bite.

Peter Bird, director of investment banking at Rothschild, said: "We all need to face the challenges of the environment and the need for clean energy. To date we have been involved in CO2 trading, fuel cells and biomass, wave, tidal and wind energy. We are actively pursuing further initiatives in these fields and in other renewable technologies." Industry observers are also pointing to the bank’s involvement in the emerging clean transport sector. Rothschild has advised Rolls Royce on the successful sale of a 25% stake in Rolls Royce Fuel Cell Systems Limited to Singapore Technologies.

The Clean Technology Supplier of the Year award has been won by GE Energy, one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers. Wind energy forms a key component of ecomagination, a company wide initiative introduced by GE to aggressively bring to market new technologies that will help customers meet pressing environmental challenges. As part of this initiative GE has also pledged to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions by an absolute 1% from 2004 levels while doubling its annual R&D investment from 700 million dollars to 1.5 billion dollars by 2010.

"GE Energy is absolutely delighted to receive recognition for technological advances from the industry driven Renewable Energy Finance Forum", said Robert Gleitz, General Manager of GE Energy’s wind segment. "GE has a long standing history of product innovation and ongoing product development. ecomagination further demonstrates our company-wide commitment to create and enhance products and services that help customers improve their environmental and operating performance."

Core projects under its ecomagination programme are the Arklow Banks Wind Park in Ireland and the GE Research Centre in Munich. Included in the primary research at Munich are new designs of solar power modules and solar applications for water treatment including desalination and water pumping.

Jonathan Johns, UK head of renewables at Ernst & Young says: "The awards had record votes this year, with more than three times the level of interest on the previous year, reflecting the buoyant levels of investment in the sector." The Financial Times wrote on the day of the awards ceremony: “When the renewable energy industry hands out its annual awards at the Royal Gardens Hotel in London tonight, the winners will find the spotlight that bit brighter. Renewable sources of energy are very much in fashion, thanks to sky-high oil prices and soaring petrol costs. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has focused minds on the extent of global reliance on fossil fuels, generating interest from both the public and investors in the renewable sector.”