Embracing renewable energy

Instead of hugging a tree, thousands of tree-huggers will embrace a wind energy turbine in a bid to break a world record.

Attempting the world record will be close to three thousand people who will be at the Westmill Wind Farm close to Watchfield. This will be the highlight of seven days of green-themed events in the area around Faringdon.

The three thousand people will join hands at around two in the afternoon and try to set a new world record in the hugging of wind energy turbines.

When Ecoweek begins on Saturday events and activities whose objective is to encourage people to use less energy will take place in Faringdon.

The person who conceived the idea of Ecoweek, Sjoerd Vogt, said that it was necessary for everyone to be encouraged to live greener lives and reduce the carbon emissions. He added that Ecoweek is about everyone in the community learning from one another in a bid to create a better world. Any fun that the event will witness has to be ‘low carbon’.

Visitors to the event will also be able to tour the wind farm which comprises of five wind energy turbines each of which is fifty metres tall and all of which have a total power generation capacity of one thousand and three hundred kilowatts. The wind energy turbines produce enough electricity for the consumption of approximately two thousand and seven hundred households annually. The electricity so produced is sold to Good Energy by the co-operative which owns it. The cooperative is comprised of the locals.

www.ecoweek.org.uk