Denmark’s Wind Farms Produce 140 Percent Of Electricity Demand, Without Reaching Capacity – Country Selling Renewable Energy To Neighbors

Denmark has proven that it is indeed possible to completely rely on renewable energy sources. The country produced about 140 percent of its electricity demand from its wind farms, and they aren’t even functioning at capacity.

On any particularly windy day, Denmark’s wind farms can easily produce between 116 and 140 percent of the nation’s electricity requirements. Interestingly, the wind farms aren’t even operating at their full 4.8GW capacity at the time. The excess energy produced can and is being sold to its neighbors. This simply proves that renewable energy sources can be depended upon not just to fulfill energy demands within the region, but make serious money selling surplus to those who need it.

Denmark shared 80 percent of the surplus electricity produced by the wind farms with Germany and Norway, while Sweden got the rest, shared Oliver Joy from the European Wind Energy Association,

“It shows that a world powered 100 percent by renewable energy is no fantasy. Wind energy and renewables can be a solution to decarbonisation – and also security of supply at times of high demand.”

While other countries might proclaim their commitment to meet part of the energy needs using renewable sources by 2030 and setting modest targets for the future, Denmark has already surpassed such goals. In fact, the country managed to produce almost 40 percent of its national electricity needs from wind last year, and last week it seriously upped the ante by speeding ahead production and surpassing the need, thereby producing excess which can be sold in the energy market. However, the weather conditions need to be ideal for such a feat, reported The Guardian.

The production was crosschecked by Energinet.dk, a Denmark-based website that tracks the ratio of renewable versus fossil fuel-based energy being fed into the national grid for production of electricity.

Despite the euphoria, such feats are still occasional and need winds that are neither too strong nor too weak. Hence Denmark is getting only a third of its overall electricity needs from off-shore wind farms for now. However, it is expected Denmark will increase the dependence to 50 percent well before its self-set deadline of 2020.

As fossil fuels and their exploration continue to threaten nature, countries are slowly trying to adopt renewable energy sources like wind, tidal, biomass, and even geothermal. Fortunately there are quite a few countries which have shown that ditching fossil fuels completely and depending on renewable and sustainable energy alone isn’t a crazy fantasy for an entire nation.

[Image Credit | Jorgen True / Getty Images]