European wind energy broke a new record on Saturday, 28 October, with 24.6% of the EU’s electricity demand powered by wind – highest percentage ever recorded, WindEurope reported. Offshore wind turbines accounted for 2.8% of this share, while those on land met 21.8% of EU’s electricity demand.
Leading in wind energy generation on Saturday was Denmark, where wind represented 109% of its electricity demand, followed by and 61% in Germany.
WindEurope said that the new record is not only attributted to the continued expansion of wind energy in Europe, but also to particularly strong northern winds and a major wave of cool polar air mass travelling across central, eastern and south-eastern Europe.
When it comes to the expansion of wind energy, Europe saw 6.1GW of new capacity installed in the first half of 2017. A flurry of activity was recorded in offshore wind across 18 projects in four EU Member States (Germany, UK, Belgium and Finland), which saw a total of 1.3GW installed in the first six months of this year. At the end of 2016, Europe had an installed offshore wind capacity of 12.6GW.
According to WindEurope’s recently published projections , Europe has the potential of reaching a total of 70GW of installed offshore wind energy by 2030.