China's Beijing Shenzhou Daxu Bio-energy Technology Company was rewarded the UK Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, the world's leading green energy prize, in a final competition taking place in London Thursday.

The Chinese company won the first prize of the Ashden Award for its creation of a stove that burns widely available crop waste as well as wood much more efficiently.

Crop waste is widely available in China yet very few stoves designed have been able to burn this waste effectively. The Daxu stove is designed to not only burn crop waste with 40 percent efficient, but also produce hardly any smoke and cut cooking and heating costs by 50 percent.

If it replaces a traditional coal burning stove, it can save around eight tons of CO2 emissions per year. With its two hot plates, it also allows families to cook a stir-fry dish and steamed rice at the same time.

Some Daxu stove models also come with a back boiler which provides hot running water and heating to rural families.

Since last September, 25,000 models have been sold, with 10,000sold in the first three months of 2007.

There is enormous potential for introducing this technology throughout China, since over 20 million wood and coal stoves are sold each year.

The Chinese company is one of the 10 renewable energy pioneers from across the globe, this year mainly from China, India and Peru, selected to enter the final stage of the competition, which took place here.

The Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, founded in 2001 by the Ashden Trust, is an annual competition to identify and reward outstanding and innovative projects in the UK and developing countries which tackle climate change and improve quality of life by providing renewable energy and energy efficiency at a local level.

(Xinhua News Agency June 23, 2007)