WIND POWER
WIND POWER
By Jeanne Larson
Science Alert reports that on a particularly windy July 2015 day Denmark’s wind farms produced between 116 and 140% of the nation’s electricity requirements, and they weren’t even operating at full capacity. Germany and Norway took 80% of the excess, storing the surplus in hydropower systems for later use, and Sweden took the rest.
Oliver Joy from the European Wind Energy Association said this shows that a world powered 100% by renewable energy is no fantasy.
Denmark cannot rely on wind energy to sustain it all the time, yet it
* generated 39.1% of its national electricity needs from wind in 2014
* increased its wind farm output by 18% each year
* plans to increase off-shore wind farm capacity to 50% of overall electricity needs by 2020.
Governor Walker said in 2010 that wind power is “an expensive, inefficient source of electricity and thus any further construction of wind turbines simply is not a policy goal or objective that should be pursued further.”
Upon taking office in 2011, Walker and GOP legislators proposed stricter state rules regarding siting of wind turbines, prompting several state wind farm projects to be cancelled or put on hold. An estimate in December 2011 by Renew Wisconsin, a nonprofit group that advocates for sustainable energy, set the loss to Wisconsin at about 1,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in new http://www.sciencealert.com/denmark-just-generated-140-of-its-electricity-demand-from-wind-power investment.
The American Wind Energy Association notes of Midwestern states, Wisconsin ranks last in wind projects under construction and in queue. Other Wisconsin Wind Facts:
* Installed wind capacity: 648 MW
* Potential wind capacity: 103,757 MW
* Statewide electricity from wind energy: 2.4%
Let Wisconsin GOP leadership know that blocking expansion of wind energy is unnecessarily preventing Wisconsinites from moving forward with creation of clean energy jobs from a safe, sustainable source of electricity.
Sources:
http://www.awea.org/learnabout/publications/factsheets/upload/3Q-12-Wisconsin.pdf
http://www.midwestwindenergycenter.org/wisconsin_statistics_2015