With Global Wind Day just over two months away, the Austrian Wind Energy Association has decided to place a mini wind turbine right in the centre of Vienna. Lukas Pawek, coordinator of Global Wind Day in Austria, explains why…

This week the Austrian Wind Energy Association placed a small wind turbine in the centre of Vienna adorned in art by local graffiti artist Tim Stehle. This event is the official start of the first “Austrian Wind Art Contest”, aiming at promoting Global Wind Day on 15 June. It’s easy to join the contest: just upload a picture before 15 August of your wind art at: www.tagdeswindes.at/kunst, and you could win one of nine prizes from an electric bike to an Apple iPad. A jury of art-cooperatives and wind power companies will select and award the prizes.

The idea behind the first wind art contest

Last year, the Austrian Wind Energy Association amplified the EWEA photo contest in Austria with special prizes. As a result, many photos entered into the EWEA contest came from Austria. We saw that many Austrians enjoy the aesthetics of windmills as they took great pictures of these renewable energy monuments. So this year we decided to start the first wind art contest with this graffiti event in Vienna marking the kick-off. Two other events in the most attractive wind regions – Burgenland and Lower Austria – will follow in the next months. We’re constantly looking for more local artists to spread this message: The use of the infinite source of wind energy is cool, sexy and we want more wind turbines – to get rid of the old destructive energy sources like oil, coal, gas and nuclear power.