Japan’s wind power body has set a mid-century goal to increase capacity to 140 gigawatts (GW) from less than 5 GW now, it said on Monday, to meet a third of the country’s electricity demand and help it to hit its 2050 carbon neutrality target.
Nine European countries have pledged to multiply the capacity of offshore wind farms in the North Sea by eight times current levels before 2050, turning it into what Belgium’s energy minister called “Europe’s biggest green power plant”.
Turkey’s energy sector hit an important milestone this week after wind power emerged as the single largest contributor to the overall electricity mix, leaping ahead of fossil fuels – even if it was just for a day.
On November 28, the share of wind power in the electricity output was recorded at 22.6 percent, more than what the gas-fired power plants produced, according to the Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation (TETC).
In the first three months of this year a third of the country’s electricity came from wind farms, research from Imperial College London has shown.
National Grid has also confirmed that April saw a record period of solar energy generation.
By 2035 the UK aims for all of its electricity to have net zero emissions.
“There are still many hurdles to reaching a completely fossil fuel-free grid, but wind out-supplying gas for the first time is a genuine milestone event,” said Iain Staffell, energy researcher at Imperial College and lead author of the report.