By Climate Action and Winnie Kamau.
Denmark has set a new world record for wind energy generation with nearly 40 per cent of the country’s overall electricity consumption covered by wind power in 2014. About 39.1 per cent of electricity used in Denmark came from its wind turbines, according to the climate and energy ministry, confirming the country’s position as a world leader in wind power.
In January 2015, the figure peaked with just over 60 per cent of energy use in that month coming from wind power.
Rasmus Helveg Petersen, Denmark’s Climate and Energy Minister said “These are incredible figures, we still plan to put up more wind turbines. We are moving forward and we have more targets.”
The announcement demonstrates that the Danish government is on track to meet its 2020 target to source 50 per cent of all energy consumption from renewables. The Danish Minister adding “Denmark has found the key to stop global warming”.
This follows a report released in July 2015 where Denmark’s wind power generated a record 140 per cent of the country’s electricity needs enabling the country to export surplus energy to neighbours including Germany, Norway and Sweden.
Data shows that Denmark generated 116% of the nation’s electricity needs from wind turbines and increased to 140%. The 80% of the surplus power has been shared between Germany and Norway, while Sweden took about a fifth of the excess power.
Live data published on the website of the Danish transmission systems operator showed that while generating 140 per cent of the nation’s electricity needs, there was still the potential for even more wind power production in their turbines collective 4.8GW capacity.
Denmark’s success in the wind power sector was recently highlighted in a report by the European Commission Joint Research Centre, in its annual report on wind energy technology, along with Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Germany, as countries generating between 10 per cent and 40 per cent of their electricity from wind energy.
Denmark has been making significant investments in wind power and in 2014 the nation’s turbines produced over 39 per cent of electricity demand. It is estimated that Denmark will reach their target of producing 50 per cent of power from renewable sources ahead of the 2020 goal.
An island off the coast of Denmark called Samso aims to be completely fossil-fuel free by 2020. With a further 1.5GW in offshore wind farms will be added by the end of the decade.
