Spain slashes emissions as wind becomes biggest energy source

Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions have dropped almost 25 per cent on last year,  the country’s grid operator reports, as the levels of wind and hydro generation increased dramatically.

Red Eléctrica de España (REE) released a preliminary report on the country’s power generation, which revealed for “the first time ever, [wind power] contributed most to the annual electricity demand coverage”.

According to BusinessGreen, which viewed the report, wind turbines contributed 21.1 per cent of electricity demand on the Spanish peninsula, just outdoing the country’s nuclear reactors, which provided 21 per cent.

Wind power and hydroelectric power production soared this year, increasing by 12 and 16 per cent, respectively, BusinessGreen said.

Throughout the year the all-time highs of wind power production were exceeded. On February 6^th wind power recorded a new maximum of instantaneous power with 17,056MW (2.5 per cent up on the previous record) and that same day the all-time maximum for hourly energy was also exceeded reaching 16,918MWh.

Furthermore, in January, February, March and November wind power generation was the technology that made the largest contribution towards the total energy production of the system.

An increase in capacity of wind power (173 MW) as well as solar PV (140 MW) and thermal (300 MW) meant that at the end of 2013 renewables accounted for 49.1 per cent of total power capacity in Spain.

This news, coupled with the reduced out put of gas plants (down by 34.2 per cent), coal plants (27.3 per cent) and nuclear (8.3 per cent) has pushed the country more and more towards a 100 per cent renewable future, BusinessGreen said.