Onshore Wind-Power Smashes Records In Scotland

[Graham]

Strong gusts help wind power to smash records in Scotland
CNBC 24 JULY 2017



New figures show that wind produced enough power to meet, on average, the electrical needs of 124% of Scottish homes between January and June of this year.

The first six months of 2017 saw turbines send more than 6.6 million megawatt hours of electricity to the National Grid, enough to supply a little over three million Scottish homes.

This represents a 24 percent increase compared to the previous record breaking period of January to June 2015. In June 2017, wind turbines sent around 1,039,001 megawatt hours of electricity to the National Grid.

The figures come from analysis by WWF Scotland of data provided by Weather Energy.

"The first six months of 2017 have certainly been incredible for renewables, with wind turbines alone helping to ensure millions of tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions were avoided," Sam Gardner, WWF Scotland's acting director, said in a statement.

"Scotland is continuing to break records on renewable electricity, attracting investment, creating jobs and tackling climate change," Gardner added.

"If we want to reap the same rewards in the transport and heating sectors we need the Scottish Government to put in place strong policies on energy efficiency and transport in the forthcoming Climate Change Bill."

According to the Scottish government, Scotland is home to 25 percent of Europe's offshore wind resources. More broadly, there are more than 58,000 jobs in Scotland's low carbon and renewable energy economy.

[♥ Lily ♥]

Hmm... renewable energy is a good thing, but I still feel sceptical about wind turbines being reliable. What happens if there isn't enough wind blowing every day to provide enough power for everyone? Wind-farm projects remain a subject of debate amongst British people for several reasons, and electricity costs have increased a lot in the UK.

14% of peoples expensive electricity bills is towards the cost of funding wind turbine projects, yet they only work 28% of the time to provide energy to a limited amount of homes (depending on the weather and the amount of wind,) plus they don't look nice and spoil the scenic views of the countryside and landscape.... and the EU wants to impose another 10,000 wind farms across the UK landscape before 2020.