Category Education Winner Peter Droege (Australia)  Peter Droege (jpg) Project Longtime commitment to an urban energy revolution Video Video Peter Droege   www.solarcity.org

Peter Droege has spent much of his life to bridging one of the most startling gaps in contemporary culture – the vacuum between the energy blindness of mainstream urban policy and design, and the rarefied world of conventional fossil and nuclear energy policy. Since 2002 Professor Droege has served the World Council for Renewable Energy, driving 'Solar City' agendas, and promoting renewable energy in his urban consultancy work in China.

Droege’s career started at Munich's Technical University of Technology. Following milestones had been the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Tokyo, Sydney University and Beijing. He presently is a Conjoint Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. After the first oil shock, solar energy was being discussed in university courses – but dismissed as being hard to integrate aesthetically. This delay may soon prove catastrophic – unless a shift in urban agendas is brought about rapidly, of the sort articulated in Peter Droege's work.

Droege’s book 'The Renewable City – a comprehensive guide to an urban revolution' seeks to help establish a language for exploring this dangerous chasm. For this age of increasing uncertainty for cities, Droege makes the case for a Renewable Energy driven urban and regional development agenda, documenting best practice in renewable infrastructure practice. The book helps to understand the energy dimension of cities, the inexorable futures confronted, and the tools of survival.