The UK’s record for the amount of energy generated by a renewable source has been broken, as more than 40% of the country’s power was recently created by wind. RenewableUK, Britain’s wind and marine renewable energy trade body, confirmed the record and said that, for the first time, wind generated more than 16GW of electricity, smashing the previous record set in February of 15.32GW. 

Wind provided over 40% of UK energy 

Indeed, according to figures from National Grid, the weather was responsible for producing up to 16.162GW of electricity. The record happened on Sunday 8th December when wind generated energy provided 43.7% of British electricity, more than double any other type of energy generation, including nuclear (20.5%), gas (12.8%) and solar (1.3%). 

RenewableUK’s director of strategic communications, Luke Clark, 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.” He goes on to highlight just how crucial it is to harness this source of power, “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.”

Households paid to use the green power

So much energy was produced that thousands of households were reported to have been paid to use extra renewable energy over the period. Homes using a smart energy tariff were encouraged to take advantage of the clean power by plugging in their electrical devices overnight, such as charging electric vehicles and setting washing machines on a timer. Operations director of National Grid’s electricity system operator thanked households for using the surplus of energy and helping to rebalance the grid. 

According to Octopus Energy, a UK supplier of gas and electricity, 2,000 households on its Agile Octopus smart-energy tariff “made money for using energy when the wind was giving us more than enough.” They paid customers 5.6p for every kilowatt-hour of electricity they used within certain periods that night. 

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