In today’s Guardian, Simon Jenkins takes issue with the UK government’s support of wind energy. Yet his arguments are one-sided to say the least. He writes that “Meeting the current EU renewables directive, largely from wind, would cost some £15bn a year, or £670 a household”.

Currently, each EU citizen pays considerably more than that – over €700 a year – to import oil and gas from the likes of Russia and Algeria. And the price of imports is constantly changing, mostly in an upwards direction. Wind energy is a domestic European resource which is free once the turbines are up, and which saves money on fuel imports – €5.7 billion were saved thanks to wind energy last year.

Wind energy can create economic activity and jobs, while saving money – that’s one of the conclusions Christian Kjaer, CEO of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), reaches in an opinion article published today in advance of the beginning of the European Council informal growth summit.

Kjaer also said in the Windpower Monthly article that wind energy could be the ideal catalyst to create jobs while reducing Europe’s energy imports.

Noting that European leaders will bring their differences to the table 23 May to discuss how to achieve growth while addressing massive budgetary challenges, Kjaer said every EU citizen is currently paying more than €700 for energy imports.

Austrian comedian Gerald Fleischhacker abseiled from a wind turbine for GWD 2011

In just under one month wind power fans across the globe will be taking part in Global Wind Day. From wind farm open days to street entertainment, if you’d like to find out what’s going on near you, visit www.globalwindday.org. Here, in this guest post, Lukas Pawek, Global Wind Day Coordinator in Austria, tells the EWEA blog about the importance of GWD in his country….

Austrians love wind turbines: this could be the slogan of Global Wind Day 2012 in Austria. Too often people talk about wind turbines like they are an eyesore. Yes, wind turbines don’t grow naturally like trees do, but this also applies to swimming pools, cars, bridges and silos (which you can see everywhere in Austria). But in Austria the majority of people like wind farms – a recent survey found that 77% of Austrians are in favour of wind power – and we’re proud of that.

Wind power is cheaper than conventional electricity sources in both Kenya and Nicaragua, a new study from a Swiss technology institute has found.

Conducted by research scientists from ETH-Zurich’s Department of Management, Technology and Economics and published in the monthly journal Nature Climate Change, the study also found that wind energy was cheaper than solar in Brazil, Egypt, India, Kenya, Nicaragua and Thailand.

Last month wind power in Spain reached new heights. This extract from the Spanish wind energy association’s (AEE) blog ‘somos eolicos’ highlights what happened…

On 18 April wind power in Spain reached a new record by producing 317 GW hours of electricity and beating the previous record of 315 GWh recorded on 9 November 2010, according to Red Eléctrica de España (REE). Moveover, during the morning of 19 April, wind power beat previous records by covering  61.06 % of Spain’s electricity demand.