Eloise HorsfieldAN incredible 60 per cent of Spain’s energy was produced by wind power on one day last month.
According to grid operator Red Electrica, a whopping 60.5 per cent of the mainland’s supply was provided early on Monday April 9, albeit at 4am.
The previous record was 59.63 per cent of the country’s power, supplied in the early hours of November 6 2011.
Wind power has provided 18.6 per cent of electricity needs for the year so far in Spain.
Spain does not need much energy at 4am. The more important issue is what happened on the other days of that month, when the wind was not blowing. This morning there is not a breath of wind, but my kettle is heating up just the same. That is where the conventional power stations have to take over, and since they cannot be simply turned on and off there has to be double capacity. And that can only exist with huge subsidy, which is another way of saying that we are all paying twice.
Conventional power stations don’t need to be “turned off” they just slow down, otherwise there’d be all this spare electricity making our hair stand on end. It’s no good focusing simply on wind, energy must be generated from a variety of sources, geothermal, wave, solar, coal and gas (carbon capture and storage essential there) But we can stick nuclear where the sun don’t shine thank you, forget the carbon-free claims, that stuff is filthy.
That is great BUT is the cost to wildlife too high. If you do a search for “birds and windmills spain” you will see that many sources including SEO (the spanish RSPB) estimate between 6 and 18 million birds and bats are being killed each year in Spain by wind turbines. There are youtube videos of Vultures being hit and injured.