Denmark, the US, and Germany aren’t the only countries breaking wind power records these days. Spain is also a notable leader seeing strong wind power growth. In fact, it just saw its wind farms produce more electricity than any other source for a 3-month time period, for the first time ever.
Wind turbines in Spain via Shutterstock
“Since Nov. 1, wind has been the top technology in the electrical system,” the Spanish Wind Energy Association (SWEA) was quoted as writing on its blog.
Additionally, data from grid operator Red Electrica de Espana concluded that 6 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity had been generated from wind in January, another first for the country. “The last time any technology exceeded 6 terawatt-hours of monthly generation was in 2010, when it was combined-cycle gas turbines,” SWEA added.
In total, SWEA noted that 6 TWh of electricity was enough to power “enough to cover the electricity consumption of the majority of Spanish households” and that it “could cover the annual electricity consumption of countries like Honduras and Bolivia.” Pretty astounding. Wind power has certainly come a long way in the past decade or so!
One more interesting fact from the SWEA blog is that the Spanish economy has gained €3 for every €1 of wind power incentives it has given. In other words, while Spain is suffering through some difficult economic times, wind power subsidies have had a positive net effect that has kept the country in a better situation than the one in which it could have landed.
While Spain hasn’t hit 30% of electricity consumption like Denmark, it’s now up to about 25%, and it aims for 40% by 2020.
Two final stats of the day: 1) on the whole, 70% of Europeans think that renewable energy sources should get priority in the coming 30 years; and 2) 81% of Spaniards think so (only behind Portugal, and tied with Germany, Denmark, and Austria).
Drop a note below or connect with me on your favorite social media site to chat.
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Former Tesla Battery Expert Leading Lyten Into New Lithium-Sulfur Battery Era — Podcast:
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
