Portugal world’s second largest wind energy producer

Citation

(2010), "Portugal world’s second largest wind energy producer", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 21 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2010.08321cab.002

Portugal world’s second largest wind energy producer

Article Type: News From: Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal, Volume 21, Issue 3

For every 100 watts consumed last year in Portuguese homes, 15.03 watts were generated by wind power, according to data from the National Energy Networks (REN), placing Portugal second on the list of biggest global wind energy producers, ahead of Spain but behind Denmark. REN’s figures showed that in 2009, for every 24 hours of electricity energy, three hours and 36 minutes on average were produced by wind power. This was 31.6 percent more than the previous year, 2008, and is particularly significant as last year there was a significant drop (1.4 percent) in general energy consumption. Last year energy importation was also slashed by half, meaning that the national production of 7,493 Giga-watts of wind energy almost equalized energy produced by traditional stations in Sines and Tapada do Outeiro as well as being slightly less than the energy generated via all working dams.

Wind energy production over the past months has particularly benefitted by the recent windy weather conditions. Other renewable energy production options have also been growing in popularity in Portugal. Hydro-electricity production has grown by 24.7 percent and photovoltaic production has increased by an impressive 315 percent.

Furthermore, clean energies, such as bio-mass and co-generation energies, represented 35.9 percent of all energy consumed in Portugal last year. Nevertheless, this figure still falls short of the 45 percent goal post that Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates has established for 2010.