The image shows some antique windturbines from the eighties (prably Alamonto pass). Why not show a nice modern windturbines?

Your post should read:

"...exceeding power generated by ANY other SOURCE..."

Instead of:

"...exceeding power generated by all other means..."

If wind only contributed 27 percent it may have been the single largest source, but it did not contribute more than ALL the rest.

all countries should switch to wind and solar in my opinion as soon as possible

That is so inspiring. I am always uplifted to hear about energy that causes less pollution than the old ways. Thank you!

I've traveled to Spain and seen their wind power systems and they are a sight to see. In 1998 there was few if any and every year I return they have more of these. What they are doing makes total sense.

They are so much further ahead than the 99.9% of the US. We are still in the stone age (at least Michigan). The lake winds could be powering our state.

Not only is this great for their county but when you see these monsters turning it's sort of artistic against the sky. They rotate at such an eye pleasing state that you are sort of hypnotized.

It's really odd that the old Spanish world has never gone it's just has been upgraded... (windmills and & Don Quixote)

How much does their electricity cost?
Has wind been cost effective for them?

I don't want to play the devil's advocate here, and I'm all for sustainable energy, but the drawback of wind power (and solar power also but to a lesser degree) is that you just can't depend on it, you can't control the wind after all.

As long as we can't store huge amounts of electricity we need to power down normal powerplants when the wind is blowing in order to keep the net from being 'overcharged'. This powering down and starting up apparently causes a huge efficiency loss for those plants, which makes them more polluting.

Also I saw a documentary claiming that in Denmark some factories need to shut down when the wind is blowing hard. Electricity is then generated by off shore wind turbines and apparently this causes the price of electricity to increase. It is economically more feasible for those factories to stop production. Not that great....

Wind and solar energy have huge potential but there are some mayor issues that need resolving imho.

The original report notes that this event occurred only at 5:40 pm on Monday. It was a power surge, not a useful supply of energy.

In reply to Shutter, what you mention need not be a big problem. In the current situation where wind is a fairly small proportion of power produced in every country, the fluctuations in wind output can be readily adjusted for by other power plants. Hydro power is particularly suitable for this since there is none of the cost of efficiency that thermal plants might have. Many thermal plants shut down at night anyway. It's an argument against thermal power, not against wind power. There are electricity generators here in New Zealand who are proposing operating new windfarms in conjunction with their existing hydro dams to even out the variation in wind power and be able to manage hydro lake levels better (keep them higher). You also need o be aware that across a whole country (or continent) there is much less variation in wind power output than in any one windfarm. Europe's electricity grid is interconnected between countries so that makes it a huge area and many hundreds of power plants to even out any change in power supply or demand.

I would also suggest that there ARE ways of storing excess wind energy. I am a fan of the idea of oversizing wind power capacity and then using the excess power to either store the energy in hydro dams (by not using them & letting water levels rise) or producing hydrogen through electrolysis. It may not be economic yet to build a windfarm just for hydrogen production but feeding a fairly constant amount of power into the grid & converting the excess energy this way might make sense to obtain a more sustainable energy system overall.

Of course it would be very difficult (not impossible) to build an electricity system using wind power alone so there will probably always be baseline power generators able to adjust their output economically to correct for the constantly varying supply & demand. What form this takes is another question. Demand-side response is capable of absorbing a lot of variation ie water heaters generally only on when there's plenty of generation available, electric cars charging at offpeak times and V2G (vehicle to grid) power may play a role. Night-store heaters. This may well become more important in years to come as more variable renewable electricity is produced (wind & solar). Hydro is very useful. Geothermal works in some places. Thermal power stations may eventually work on biomass like solid or gasified wood or biologically sourced methane (natural gas). I'm not a fan of nuclear but it will play a role in some countries.

Yes there are issues to be resolved but they are all solvable with current technology & techniques.

As for electricity costing more when the wind is blowing - that sounds like nonsense. Once a windfarm is built, the energy it produces is effectively free (no fuel to burn) so wind energy will always feed into the grid at a slightly lower price than thermal energy (unless some sort of subsidy is applied). That's how it works here anyway. When there's lots of wind & rain, electicity prices are low and when we have a dry winter & hydro lake levels drop, then the hydro generators reduce production (to maintain certain minimum lake levels), the price rises and thermal generators increase output.

Hope this helps inform people.
Benjamin