Washout summer proves a ‘belter’ for renewable energy as wind power output rises by 50 per cent
SCOTLAND’S summer may have been a washout, but the wet and windy weather has proved to be a “belter” for renewable energy, with the amount of electricity produced by wind turbines up by more than 50 per cent on last year.
Wind power alone supplied 660,117.23 Megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity to the National Grid in July, which is enough to supply on average the needs of 72 per cent of Scottish homes.
That is up by 58 per cent from the same month in 2014, according to environmental c a mp a ig ner s at WWF Scotland.
The body analysed data on wind and solar power from Weather-Energy in July, discovering wind power generated more than a third of Scotland’s electricity needs for the month.
The amount of electricity used by homes, businesses and industry last month totalled 1,856,789.5MWh, with wind power producing 36 per cent of this.
On eight days in July the amount of energy generated by wind turbines was sufficient to meet the needs of every home in Scotland, WWF found.
The group’s Scotland director Lang Banks said: “July turned out to be a belter of a month for wind power in Scotland.
“Thanks to a combination of increased capacity and much windier weather, output from turbines was up more than half compared to the same period last year – supplying power equivalent to the electrical needs of 1.75 million homes.”
Despite the wet weather, there was enough sunshine to allow homes with solar PV panels to generate 94 per cent of the average electricity need in Aberdeen, compared to 87 per cent in Inverness, 85 per cent in Edinburgh and 79 per cent in Glasgow.
For homes which use solar power to heat their water, the sunshine could have generated 92 per cent of an average home’s hot water needs in Aberdeen, compared to 87 per cent in Inverness, 85 per cent in Edinburgh and 74 per cent in Glasgow.
The data was released as US president Barack Obama moved ahead with tougher greenhouse gas cuts, aiming to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 levels.