Wind Farms in Spain Set New Record

It now seems that wind energy provided more than half of Spain’s total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend. The country was able to set a new national record for wind generated power. With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain’s big network of wind farms were able to produce the power that is equivalent to 11 nuclear power stations.

Reports show, at one point during Sunday morning, the country’s wind farms were able to cover 53 percent of the total electricity needs for the whole country. This is a new record in a country that boasts the world’s third largest array of wind turbines. The only other two countries to offer more wind turbines are Germany and the United States.

For more than five hours on Sunday morning, the output from wind power was providing more than half of the electricity being used at the time. At the peak, the wind farms were actually generating 11.5 gigawatts, or two thirds of their theoretical maximum capacity, which is 18GW. This was a new record that was able to beat out the 44 percent level, which was set just a last week.

This massive output of wind power does mean that the Spanish grid had more electricity on hand than what was needed over the weekend. In previous years, similar weather has forced wind farms to turn turbines off, but now the spare electricity is exported or used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams. Thus effectively storing the electricity for future use for one of the first times ever.