Blowin' in the Wind

Hurrah — the UK is producing enough electricity from windpower to serve all of London south of the river, says the British Wind Energy Association.

With the 30-turbine wind farm off England's Essex coast going into production, the UK now has four gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity from wind. That’s enough electricity to power 2.3 million homes — half of England, or the whole of Scotland. What’s more, it saves six million tons of coal a year — and puts the UK squarely on track to hit its green energy targets, which widely have been branded crazy ambitious.

"We are on track to hit the target of 10 percent of energy in the UK coming from renewables by 2010," BWEA chief executive Maria McCafferty said in a statement. "And with the very large capacity offshore schemes coming in from 2015, we should get to the target of 30 GW of wind by 2020."

The UK really has gone with the wind in recent years. It took the UK 14 years to install its first gigawatt in 2005. The next 3 GW took just four years, with the last 1 GW coming on in less than 12 months. The BWEA says a total of 6 GW of wind will be installed by the end of 2010, which – with 2 GW of other renewable energy – means 10 percent of the country’s total generating capacity will come from green energy. And if all the wind farms currently in construction are built according to plan, by 2010 there will be 12 GW of installed wind capacity, which means the UK will be generating more electricity from wind than nuclear power.

Said BWEA Chairman Adam Bruce in a statement: "We are more than doing our bit to help deliver a low carbon, high growth future for the UK."

Get a wind of that.

Photo courtesy Per Foreby via Flickr.