Rotating house wins environmental building award

Prague, Oct 13 (CTK) - A house rotating with the sun created by Bohumil Lhota in Velke Hamry, north Bohemia, is the absolute winner of the 2012 E.ON Energy Globe Award Czech Republic competition, the results of which the E.ON power company released Saturday.

The company introduced the competition to the Czech Republic in 2008. It is held under the aegis of the Environment Ministry.

The Energy Globe Award, dubbed "environmental Oscar", started to be presented in Austria in 1999.

The contest organisers have said the awarded environment-friendly house can rotate around its axis according to the sun's movement and it can be hidden up to two metres under the ground to resist heavy frosts in winter.

Moreover, a swimming pool is embedded in the concrete foundations of the house, using water warmed by solar panels on the roof.

The house owner was working on the house along with his friends for some 20 years

Lhota, who officially took over the award on October 4, also received an environment-friendly Skoda Citigo car fuelled by compressed natural gas.

Along with the main award, Lhota's house also won in the Handyman category.

Anybody who has materialised a project saving energy and nature, using renewable energy sources and contributing to environmental protection can contest the E.ON Energy Globe Awards in seven categories: Handyman, Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Youth and Municipality.

A total of 165 projects took part in the contest this year.

E.ON has a one-fifth share on the energy market in the 10.5-million Czech Republic. It supplies electricity to some 1.2 million clients in south Bohemia and Moravia and gas to some 120,000 people in south Bohemia.