New Spanish Wind Power Record: Wind Supplies 43% of Spanish Electric Demand
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 11.25.08
photo: einalem
Who says that wind power can’t provide large parts of a nation’s electric needs? For a brief period on Monday, November 24th wind power provided 43% of all of Spain’s demand for electricity, according to the Spanish wind power association. (AFP/Yahoo News) At around 5 AM, wind power generated 9,253 megawatts of power out of a total demand of 21,264 megawatts.
OK, fine. So demand was low because of the early hour of the morning, but it’s still a record worth noting. The previous wind power record for Spain was 40.8% , set back in March of this year. For the year, wind power is expected to supply about 11% of total Spanish electricity demand.
Good, But US Town Is All Wind Powered
If you think that’s good, the town of Rock Port, Missouri manages to supply 123% of its electric demand through wind power. Residents of that town have the honor of living in the first fully wind powered town in the United States.
via: AFP/Yahoo News
Wind Power
New Wind Power Record in Spain: 40.8% of Total Demand!
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Wow !! That's incredible !!
I think the turbines look great. It would serve well to put other sensors and monitors on them as well. I read an article about how our weather satellites are starting to fail and less replacements coming on line. All sorts of stuff could be put on them - air quality monitors, cameras (for watching for wildfires, etc), cell antennas.
vsk
What is particularly heartening is the fact that Iberdrola have several wind energy projects lined up for the USA. Hopefully, they would use this information to push their case forward more aggressively.
I also hope that T Boone Pickens gets some more support for his wind initiative though, like many others, I have my reservations about his Natural Gas thrust.
Nice story, but it is chasing the wrong statistic. What we really need to know is how much unsustainable energy could be turned off? I suspect nowhere near 40%, because of variations in the wind. It does you little good to have huge amounts of wind power unless it allows you to turn off the coal burners.