Wind power is cheaper than conventional electricity sources in both Kenya and Nicaragua, a new study from a Swiss technology institute has found.
Conducted by research scientists from ETH-Zurich’s Department of Management, Technology and Economics and published in the monthly journal Nature Climate Change, the study also found that wind energy was cheaper than solar in Brazil, Egypt, India, Kenya, Nicaragua and Thailand.
Last month wind power in Spain reached new heights. This extract from the Spanish wind energy association’s (AEE) blog ‘somos eolicos’ highlights what happened…
On 18 April wind power in Spain reached a new record by producing 317 GW hours of electricity and beating the previous record of 315 GWh recorded on 9 November 2010, according to Red Eléctrica de España (REE). Moveover, during the morning of 19 April, wind power beat previous records by covering 61.06 % of Spain’s electricity demand.
Middelgrunden
2012 is a big year for the European Wind Energy Association: we will celebrate our 30 year anniversary! Did you know that in 1982, when EWEA was founded, wind turbine size was just 55 kW and there was only one wind farm in Europe? (A five-turbine wind farm on the Greek island of Kyathos.)
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s three countries dominated Europe’s wind energy scene: Denmark, Germany and Spain, and in 1984 the first European Wind Energy Conference (EWEC – now known as the EWEA Annual Event) was held in Hamburg. At that point, the EU had a cumulative wind power capacity of 800 MW.
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Anni Mikkonen
By Anni Mikkonen, Finnish Wind Power Association
Finland has one of the lowest amounts of wind energy capacity in Europe but the situation could be changing. Anni Mikkonen from the Finnish Wind Energy Association tells the EWEA blog why…
Finland’s target for 2020 is to meet 38% of the country’s energy consumption with renewable energies. The main renewable energy sources to meet this target are biomass, wind power and hydro power. In the national renewable energy action plan, the target for wind is 2,500 MW in installed capacity. It is not much compared to the leading wind energy countries in Europe, but it is an ambitious target for a country that has currently got a very modest wind energy capacity – only 198 MW.
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Dumped equipment at Chernobyl
Japan is much in the news this week after the Asian nation shut down the last of its 54 nuclear reactors for safety tests and maintenance following last year’s earthquake and tsunami which triggered a meltdown of the Fukushima reactor.
Wind power and other renewables are expected to help fill some of the gap caused by shutting down Japan’s nuclear industry, which had provided more than 30% of electricity for the world’s number three economy.
