UK wind farms deliver record 37% of nation’s electricity

Wind farms in the UK have notched up a new record for generation, after supplying 36.9 per cent of the country’s electricity on the morning of Sunday March 18.

According to the national grid operator, wind energy hit a record 13.9GW of metered output at 10am on Sunday morning, boosted by strong winds and the addition of several large offshore wind farms in 2017 – a record year for deployment. That output increased to 14GW by 11am.

The new record was confirmed by the National Grid Operator in response to the above tweet from a “wind-loving Walthamstow mum.”

The Grid Operator tweeted at 10.30am that renewable energy sources (plus storage) were providing 44.8 per cent of Great Britain’s electricity all up: wind 31.4%, gas 19.8%, nuclear 15.7%, coal 14.4%, solar 6.4%, imports 6.3%, biomass 4.1%, storage 1.1%, hydro 0.5%, other 0.2%.

Comments

4 responses to “UK wind farms deliver record 37% of nation’s electricity”

  1. George Darroch Avatar
    George Darroch

    What’s the highest percentage of wind achieved in Australia?

    1. Trevor Toomer Avatar
      Trevor Toomer

      Don’t know for Australia, but it has been over 100% in South Australia at times, until AEMO decided they had to keep gas fired systems running, just in case.

      1. rob Avatar
        rob

        On Sunday S.A. was totally power by wind for numerous hours. We were exporting 650Mw to Filthy Vic for all of that time

    2. David Osmond Avatar
      David Osmond

      For the NEM, I believe it was 18.8% at 4:30am on Sept 3 last year. Wind was supplying 3.3 GW out of total supply of 17.6 GW. For wind+solar, the max was 30.7% of the NEM at 11:30am on Oct 29 last year, comprisng wind 3.1 GW, solar 3.7 GW and total supply 22.3 GW.

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