Wind Power Generates 140% Of Denmark’s Power Demand
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Wind power generated 140% of Denmark’s electricity demand last Thursday, which allowed the country to export some of its power to neighboring Norway, Germany, and Sweden.
News of the record-breaking generating figure has been swimming around news outlets and social media. The Guardian appear to have broken the news, at least in the mainstream, last Friday.
According to figures, Denmark generated 116% of the nation’s electricity needs from wind turbines. By 3am on Friday morning, with the winds still blowing strong, that figure had increased to 140%. As the graph below shows, interconnectors allowed for 80% of the power surplus to be shared between Germany and Norway, while Sweden took about a fifth of the excess power.
“It shows that a world powered 100% by renewable energy is no fantasy,” said Oliver Joy, a spokesman for trade body the European Wind Energy Association, speaking to The Guardian. “Wind energy and renewables can be a solution to decarbonisation – and also security of supply at times of high demand.”
Denmark’s wind energy success was recently highlighted in a report by the European Commission Joint Research Centre, in its annual report on wind energy technology, along with Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Germany, as countries generating between 10% and 40% of their electricity from wind energy.
Similarly, in the middle of June Denmark announced a new tender round for 350 MW of near-shore wind farms off the east coast of Jutland.
The Guardian quoted Kees van der Leun, the chief commercial officer of the Ecofys energy consultancy, who believes that a recent surge in wind turbine installations could help Denmark produce half of its electricity demand from renewable energy sources well before 2020.
“They have a strong new builds programme with a net gain of 0.5GW in new onshore windfarms due before the end of the decade,” he said. “Some 1.5GW from new offshore windfarms will also be built, more than doubling the present capacity. We’re seeing a year-on-year 18% growth in wind electricity, so there really is a lot of momentum.”
Image Credit: energinet.dk, via RenewEconomy & TckTckTck, via Twitter
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