Storm Atiyah blows in new British wind power record
Written by News on 10/12/2019
The weekend’s storms helped Britain set a new renewable power record on Sunday evening, according to National Grid.
The electricity operator said wind farms generated more than 16 gigawatts of power – five times the output expected from the controversial new Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant under construction in Somerset.
The company said wind supplied almost 44% of electricity over the day as a whole.
Sunday evening saw Storm Aiyah – the first named weather system of the new winter season – blow in, bringing gusts of almost 80mph when it crossed to Wales and southwest England from Ireland.
Extra power on the network meant National Grid paid some households to use electricity, as it was cheaper than paying the operators of wind turbines to stop them generating.
At one point on Sunday night, customers on Octopus Energy’s agile pricing tariff who own electric cars got paid to charge their vehicles or sell it back to the grid by as much as 5p per unit of power.
Luke Clark from industry body RenewableUK said: “This new British clean energy record is a great early Christmas present, and shows just how important wind is in an energy system that’s changing rapidly.
“On a dark cold Sunday when we need it most, wind was providing more than 40% of our power, far more than any other source of electricity.
“Wind energy is at the heart of our modern power system, enabling us to take practical action against dangerous climate change”.
The National Grid data showed that nuclear generated 20.5% of British power on Sunday, gas supplied 12.8% and biomass 7.9%.
The balance came mainly from imported power and coal – the latter at 3%.
The renewable power record follows an energy first for the country in the late spring when the UK went without any coal-fired power for a whole week in May.
(c) Sky News 2019: Storm Atiyah blows in new British wind power record
