Chinese entrepreneur Huang Ming won the 2011 Right Livelihood Award, also known as Alternative Nobel Prize, said the Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation on Thursday.

The first Chinese citizen to receive the prize, Huang founded the Himin Solar, now a pioneer in the field of solar thermal energy.

Huang received the 2011 Honorary Award "for his outstanding success in the development and mass-deployment of cutting-edge technologies for harnessing solar energy, thereby showing how dynamic emerging economies can contribute to resolving global crisis of anthropogenic climate change," said the jury in a citation.

The Solar Valley in the Chinese city of Dezhou, which Huang set up, was a national and global example for solar as a realistic alternative to fossil and nuclear energy and rising CO2 emissions, the jury added.

Huang and three other winners, namely Jacqueline Moudeina from Chad, international organization GRAIN and Ina May Gaskin from the United States would share 150,000 euros (205,100 U.S. dollars) cash prize.

Founded in 1980, the Right Livelihood Awards are presented annually to "honor and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today."