By Kara Perconti

Are you creative with your camera and have a passion for wind energy? Then you might be keen to enter EWEA’s 2013 photo competition for Global Wind Day, giving yourself the chance to win a €1,000 Amazon voucher!

Following the success of last year’s hugely popular Global Wind Day photo competition, this year we are launching a photo competition with a twist: we are looking for entrants to submit a photo accompanied by a short story about wind energy describing to us what wind energy means to you.

Do you have a story to tell about wind energy? Whether you simply think wind turbines are attractive, or you think wind energy is the future, or, you work in the sector and want to tell us your story, supplement a photo submission with a short text. Tell us of a time when wind energy inspired you or sparked your attention, we want to know!

By Megan Swieca

A group of about 500 wind energy enthusiasts assemble themselves to form a giant human wind turbine near the town hall of Poitiers, France, just as a flash mob bursts into dance and a bike rally trails through the city of Murmansk, Russia.

This is just a snippet of what took place on 15 June at two of the 230 Global Wind Day (GWD) event locations. The events, aimed to provide people with information about wind energy and celebrate its power, were vast in number and creativity.

Chris Hopson

Comment by Recharge Editor-in-Chief Christopher Hopson.  Reproduced with kind permission of Recharge.

Opinion polls in many countries show that most people actually like the look of wind farms. There is even a strong body of evidence to suggest that wind farms encourage tourism through such things as trips to visitor centres.

As can be instantly seen from the display of winning photographs for the Global Wind Day competition published across our centre pages this week, not only do wind farms generate power, visually they can be very much in harmony with surrounding landscapes.

Only a vocal anti-wind minority, mainly supported by out-of-touch conservative politicians and right-wing businessmen such as failed US presidential hopeful Donald Trump, view wind farms as “monstrosities”.  The vast majority see wind as an exciting form of clean energy. Looking at the pictures, it’s easy to see why.

Brussels, the heart of European decision making where the EU’s movers and shakers live and work, is right now home to a photo exhibition displaying outstanding photos from the Global Wind Day photo competition.
If you are in Brussels, don’t miss your chance to see the exhibition on Place du Luxembourg just in front of the European Parliament, where the European crowd gathers for lunch and drinks after a hard day of work.
Budding and professional photographers alike were asked to capture wind energy in unique and inspiring ways. Come and admire the winning photos, and more pictures that we thought were beautifully shot and needed to be shown to a bigger audience, and learn something about wind energy too!
The exhibition is up and running until 29 June, on Place du Luxembourg, 1040 Brussels, but if you can’t make it, read about the winning photos here.

© Chris Wilson

A solitary wind turbine stands before the eerie flashes of green Aurora Australis cloud in Antarctica, meanwhile another turbine faces a threateningly dark curved cloud sweeping in from the west – these are just two of the winning images of the Global Wind Day 2012 ‘Wind In Mind’ photo competition announced today.

Launched in May 2012, the ‘Wind In Mind’ photo competition invited budding and professional photographers alike to send their images of wind energy that depicted the emissions-free technology in new and inspiring ways.