by number23 via AnonHQ.com
Despite
the incredible environmental progress we have made over the past
decade, in today’s society, many still believe that renewable energy
sources cannot fully replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Thankfully, last month, Denmark proved that this is simple not the case.
On
the evening of July, 9 Denmark’s wind farms generated enough
electricity to meet all of its nations needs and more. On that
particularly blustery day, the wind turbines created 116 percent of Denmark’s required electricity. By 3 am the following morning— as energy use subsided through the night— this figure had reached an incredible 140 percent.
“It
shows that a world powered 100 percent by renewable energy is no
fantasy,” said Oliver Joy, a spokesman for trade body the European Wind
Energy Association. “Wind energy and renewables can be a solution to
decarbonization – and also security of supply at times of high demand.”
As
a result of this sudden influx of electricity, Copenhagen sold 40
percent of the excess energy to neighbouring countries Norway and
Germany, and 20 percent to Sweden. The figures of this day emerged on
the website of the Danish transmission systems operator, energinet.dk, which had tracked the input of renewable energy minute-by-minute.
According to the site, Denmark’s windfarms were not even operating at
their full 4.8GW capacity during the extraordinary weather conditions.
As described by the European Commission Joint Research Center, wind energy technology is steadily becoming popular across many European countries. In its annual report, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Romania and Spain were credited for their successful use of wind energy technology. According to the report, each of the countries “generates between 10 percent and 40 percent of its electricity from wind.”
In
addition, it also appears that many of these nations are also preparing
to involve themselves in the technologies future advancements; on July
7, Statoil, Norway’s oil and gas giant, announced that it is considering
investing is a floating wind farm off the east coast of Scotland. In
Germany, since May 11, 2014, when the country’s solar panels and wind
turbines gave Germany a day’s worth of free electricity, the county has increasingly promoted the use of renewable energy.
Amongst
Denmark’s other environmental goals, the country aims to produce half
of its electricity with renewable sources by 2020, and 84 percent by
2035. As Denmark has made significant investments in the construction of
more wind farms, the country could possibly beat their first target
date.
Image Credit: Dirk Goldhahn, WikiMedia Commons
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