Wind power gets Europe’s vote

The winners of the contest were those who managed to get the most friends to vote for their turbine, also via the website.

EWEA has published today the results of the competition ending in December 2010 with more than 45,000 people following the contest online, 3,727 wind turbines adopted and 8,604 votes cast– sending a clear message that wind power is very popular among Europeans.

The countries in which most wind turbines were adopted were Spain with 494 adopted wind turbines, followed by Italy (433), UK (427), France (422) and Germany (231). But wind energy enthusiasts adopted wind turbines everywhere in Europe: from the Faroe Islands to Turkey, from Norway to Portugal, from Poland to Switzerland.

One family was so enthusiastic and mobilised their community so effectively that two of them won the competition hands down. Brother and sister Lien and Wiet van Hout from Geel in Belgium are both passionate glider plane pilots, and love seeing wind turbines from the air.

They had adopted their wind turbines at the Viscaria wind farm in Kiruna in Northern Sweden. Lien has won a trip to Copenhagen, including a wind farm visit organised by the Danish Wind Industry Association – while Wiet gets a trip to the Swiss Jura, donated by sol-E Suisse, the operator of Juvent, Switzerland’s largest wind farm, which he will also visit as part of the prize.

“I was able to make my family, friends and neighbors more conscious about wind energy being an environment friendly energy source that reduces CO2 emissions drastically. The support I got was overwhelming. Even the young children that are in the scouts group I am leading got on board”, explained Lien van Hout to EWEA.

Meanwhile the people of Kiruna were also pleased and surprised about the news. Reporter Åsa Junkka published a newspaper article in the Kiruna newspaper NSD about the winners and the popular turbine from Kiruna.

Although the contest is now closed, it is still possible to adopt wind turbines to show your support for wind energy, and find out more about EWEA’s Breath of Fresh Air campaign.

www.ewea.org