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.

Nicole Bricq

After a difficult few months for the French wind industry, Nicole Bricq, appointed French minister for ecology, sustainable development and energy, and now minister for external commerce, signalled her support for the sector and promised she will ensure that new projects can go ahead as planned.

The wind sector took a knock of confidence in May when France’s highest administrative court the Council of State asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule whether the country’s premium purchase price for onshore wind constitutes state aid. The tariff remains in place – it could take the court up to two years to make a final decision – but the referral has cast a wave of uncertainty over the industry. continue reading »

Damian Carrington, a blogger for the Guardian online, has written a noteworthy piece on wind power under the title “why there’s only one honest objection to wind farms”. His blog was prompted by an article in the Sunday Telegraph claiming that wind power subsidies are “forcing up to 50,000 households a year into fuel poverty”.

Carrington blows apart this argument by stating that between 2004 and 2010, fuel bills rose by £455, of which £382 was due to soaring gas prices, an issue this blog has previously written about. continue reading »

The B-20 Summit of global business leaders took place earlier this week in Mexico. In this blog post, cross-posted from the World Economic Forum’s blog, Ditlev Engel, CEO of Vestas Wind Systems, and Simon Upton, Director Environment at the OECD, argue the case for an end to fossil fuel subsidies…

If we are serious about reducing the use of fossil fuels, why would we make them artificially cheaper? But, that is what we are doing through inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Many industrialized countries, for example, still support their coal mining industries to the tune of several billion euros a year while developing countries often spend considerable resources to keep domestic fuel prices below world prices. Eliminating such measures and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies more generally would help reduce fiscal imbalances, increase real incomes, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the overall cost of climate change mitigation. It would thus eliminate a key barrier to the faster deployment of clean energy. A portion of the funds saved from ending such subsidies could also be redirected to support access to energy by all and other policy priorities. continue reading »

Japan, the world’s third largest economy, has firmly shifted its future energy profile towards renewable energy technologies with a decision Monday to implement a feed-in-tariff for wind power and other renewables.

Reuters reported that the new incentives for renewable energies could unleash billions of Euros in revenue from renewable generation and related equipement while helping the nation move away from its reliance on nuclear power following last year’s earthquake and tsunami which resulted in the Fukushima reactor disaster. continue reading »