A recent study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has found that wind power supplied almost half of Scotland’s total energy demand for the month of January.
After analysis of data provided by WeatherEnergy, the WWF established that wind turbines alone provided 1,125,544MW hours. To put that in perspective Scotland’s total energy consumption for the same month was 2,354,117MW hours. This clean, environmentally friendly energy was enough to supply over 100% of domestic demand and roughly 48% of Scotland’s total energy needs. Boasting one of Europe’s largest onshore wind power operations, Whitelee Windfarm, this figure is hardly surprising. Pictured below, Whitelee wind farm produces 539 megawatts from 215 turbines sprawling over 34 square miles of terrain. This makes up the largest individual part of Scotland’s current 7.5 GW worth of installed renewable electricity generation capacity and with 9.2 GW of further capacity either under construction or consented the government looks set to meet its next target.
Karen Robinson of WeatherEnergy:
“2016 has begun very much like 2015 ended, with wind power helping to supply large amounts of electricity to Scotland’s homes and businesses. All this renewable output is helping to avoid carbon emissions, something more important than ever as we begin to see the damaging impacts of climate change.”
The Scottish government had a target of generating 50% of Scotland’s electricity from renewable energy by 2015 which has been met and these planned expansions would suggest that they are serious about meeting the next big target; having Scotland become 100% powered by renewable electricity by 2020.
Image Source: http://www.freeimages.com/photo/wind-farm-1625181
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