At a ceremony and information event held at the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture and Environment on December 2, 2010, Federal Minister Niki Berlakovich awarded the klima:aktiv Award 2010 to Dr. Oskar Steinmair of Ungenach, Austria, for his expert consulting activities in climate protection for two industrial projects. This award was presented to the company for the second time.

klima:aktiv is an initiative of the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture and Environment for active climate protection and part of the Austrian climate strategy.

More than a dozen tailor-made klima:aktiv programmes provide an active impulse to demand for and supply of climate-friendly technologies and services and help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Two more Upper Austrian companies, Machland Konserven in Naarn and Vereinigte Fettwarenindustrie in Wels, have now joined the ranks of active pioneers in climate protection.

Yield data underpin excellent start of steam mission – a forward-looking technology to increase energy efficiency

Yield data now available for the energy module for carbon-free electricity generation from exhaust steam produced at a glass factory in Lünen which was installed by Aqua Society GmbH demonstrated an excellent start of the module called "steam mission". Based on the data, the module produced over 1.4 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity from January 15 to February 15, 2010 which was delivered to the public utilities of the city of Lünen for feeding it into the public grid.

As the glass factory currently can provide only limited quantities of the steam it produces for the energy module, no more than 30 per cent of the potential electrical output of 10 kilowatts (kW) could be generated. The remaining steam is still used to preheat the oil used in the glass factory. Only after completion of the planned conversion of the facility will the total steam quantity be available for the energy module to reach full operating capacity.

"In the medium term, we expect to have 8000 operating hours and carbon-neutral electricity production of 80,000 kWh per year", says Dipl.-Ing. Hubert Hamm, managing director of Aqua Society GmbH. "This will allow us to make a major contribution to increasing energy efficiency."