Scotland Sets New Wind Energy Record

Biomass boiler heating has helped the UK hit a number of new renewable energy records in recent months.

First the UK had its first day where it reached over half of its power through renewable energy, on a particularly sunny and windy day in June this year. And it was recently revealed that Scotland actually managed to produce enough wind energy this year to power it for a full six days.

These new records have been made possible by the greatly increased energy capacity of the turbines being used in new offshore windfarms.

The first 8MW wind turbine started turning off Liverpool last month, but the majority of wind turbines due to be built with this capacity will be erected in offshore wind turbines off Scotland.

Scotland now has the second biggest wind energy capacity in the world, second only to Denmark, and with a number of new offshore wind farms planned for Scotland using these new turbines, this is set to rise considerably.

Dr Sam Gardner, acting director of WWF Scotland, told The Independent: “The first six months of 2017 have certainly been incredible for renewables, with wind turbines alone helping to ensure millions of tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions were avoided.

“Scotland is continuing to break records on renewable electricity, attracting investment, creating jobs and tackling climate change.”

The figures revealed that wind energy provided around 1,039,001MWh of electricity to the National Grid during June representing a 24 per cent increase compared to 2015, when wind energy provided 5,359,995MWh.