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Wind Capacity: The Top 10
Wind turbines near Port PatrickWhich country is top of the world wind capacity league table? Well, that depends on how you define wind capacity.
Here are the top 10 countries in rank order (largest first) by installed wind capacity as of 2008
- USA with 25.4 GW
- Germany with 23.9 GW
- Spain with 16.4 GW
- China with 12.1 GW
- India with 9.6 GW
- Italy with 3.7 GW
- France with 3.7 GW
- UK with 3.3 GW
- Denmark with 3.2 GW
- Portugal with 2.8 GW
So, the USA was top of the pops in 2008 as far as installed wind capacity is concerned. Poor old Scotland only had 1.5 GW of installed capacity and wouldn't make it into the top 10 even if it was quoted as a country in its own right.
But, look what happens if we list the same top 10 countries plus Scotland in rank order (largest first) on the basis of installed wind capacity (in Watts) per capita.
- Denmark 576 W/Capita
- Spain 407 W/Capita
- Scotland 296 W/Capita
- Germany 292 W/Capita
- Portugal 267 W/Capita
- USA 84 W/Capita
- Italy 64 W/Capita
- France 60 W/Capita
- UK 54 W/Capita
- China 9 W/Capita
- India 8 W/Capita
This puts Scotland in the top 3 and is perhaps a more realistic measure of wind penetration. At the time of writing (rather than 2008 which is what the figures above relate to), Scotland has 365 W/Capita installed capacity. When the capacity currently under construction is finished, we shall have 514 W/Capita. If we reach 6 GW of on shore wind capacity (some time in the next decade, more than likely), we shall have 1188 W/Capita.
Being a small country with a relatively low population and excellent wind resource makes it easy to get to the top of this table. For China to get to the same position as Scotland is today on a per capita basis, would require 397 GW of installed capacity.
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Hi Alister,
That's really interesting. It just goes to show how statistics don't always give you the whole picture.
Two questions immediately sprang to mind. (Would you know?)
What's Scotland's average W/Capita in power consumption, (I.e. what percentage of our needs is met by windmills?)
How much windpower is generated in Edinburgh and where would I be able to find out? The only windmil I have seen is the one which Glen Bennett from EAE built. (He's got a nice video of it http://www.eae.co.uk/) I remember he had a really hard time getting permission for it,
Best wishes,
Rob
Hi Rob,
Thanks for your comments.
The Government line is that we get 20% of our electricity from renewables at present. This is a mix of a number of energy sources including wind and hydro. But that doesn't include the energy we get from other sources like oil for transport or gas for heating. It also doesn't include the energy we use indirectly embedded in things like consumer goods and foods.
I hope to give extensive numbers about how much energy we use for various activities in later blogs so, if you can wait a while, more information will be forthcoming.
The other point I should make is that, so far, I've been talking about capacity. This capacity is not used all the time. So, although we have around 10 GW of electricity generating capacity in Scotland, we are only using about half that capacity at any one time plus a bit more for exports to Nothern Ireland and England.
With regard to wind in Edinburgh, the short answer is that I don't know how much is generated in Edinburgh. But I would suspect not much. In my view, for the average householder, its not a good idea as the average wind speed is too low. There's a tool on the Energy Saving Trust web page that allows you to type in your postcode to find out if your home is likely to have suitable wind resource for a wind turbine installation.
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Can-I-generate-electricity-from-the-win...
The power output from a wind turbine is proportional to the cube of wind speed. So for example, if you have an average wind speed of 5 metres per second in a city, but 10 metres per second on a nearby hill, you'll get 8 times more energy from the same wind turbine installed on the hill compared to installing it in the city. With wind turbines as with houses its location, location, location. The average wind speed for my postcode is 3.48 metres per second and 5 metres per second is thought to be the lowest average wind speed to make a wind turbine installation viable.
Alister.