Sustainable Energy

Strong gusts help wind power to smash records in Scotland

John Guidi | robertharding | Getty Images

New figures show that wind produced enough power to meet, on average, the electrical needs of 124 percent of Scottish homes between January and June of this year.

The first six months of 2017 saw turbines send more than 6.6 million megawatt hours of electricity to the National Grid, enough to supply a little over three million Scottish homes.

This represents a 24 percent increase compared to the previous record breaking period of January to June 2015. In June 2017, wind turbines sent around 1,039,001 megawatt hours of electricity to the National Grid.

The figures come from analysis by WWF Scotland of data provided by Weather Energy.

"The first six months of 2017 have certainly been incredible for renewables, with wind turbines alone helping to ensure millions of tonnes of climate-damaging carbon emissions were avoided," Sam Gardner, WWF Scotland's acting director, said in a statement.

"Scotland is continuing to break records on renewable electricity, attracting investment, creating jobs and tackling climate change," Gardner added.

"If we want to reap the same rewards in the transport and heating sectors we need the Scottish Government to put in place strong policies on energy efficiency and transport in the forthcoming Climate Change Bill."

According to the Scottish government, Scotland is home to 25 percent of Europe's offshore wind resources. More broadly, there are more than 58,000 jobs in Scotland's low carbon and renewable energy economy.