For the first time ever this weekend Spain’s wind turbines produced more energy than the Spanish electricity grid. Thanks to strong winds throughout Spain, the wind farms produced a record-breaking amount of energy and on Sunday morning 53% of electricity produced in Spain had been generated by the turbines (the previous record, 44%, was registered last week).

Yesterday at 14.30 a record 11,546 megawatts were registered – this is equivalent to the amount of power generated by 11 nuclear reactors and represents a triumph for the renewable energy sector. Luis Atienza, Chairman of Red Electrica de España, told El País that Spain should be proud of the achievement: «No other country the same size as us has managed to generate over 50 percent of its electricity requirements using renewable energy for so long». And José Donoso, Chairman of the Spanish Eolic Business Association, reminded El País that just four years ago the members of the Association were told that the most energy they could reasonably expect to generate was 14% Spain’s requirements.

Donoso hopes that production will continue to rise, reaching 40,000 megawatts in the year 2020.

The experts were particularly pleased that the record was achieved in the early hours of the morning, when demand is lower than usual, and the system was able to save energy for peak demand times later on in the day. Whereas on other occasions the electricity grid has had to turn off a third of Spain’s wind turbines due to over supply, this time the system increased the amount of electricity being exported and the water pumped into reversible resevoirs, thereby absorbing 4,000 megawatts to be used later on in the day.

So far this month, eolic energy has generated more power than the gas and nuclear energies. And by the end of the year all renewable energies in Spain will have increased their contribution to the country’s power supply as 13% power will have been generated by eolic energy, between 9% abnd 10% by hydraulic energy and 2.

5% by solar energy.