European investment in the wind industry could accelerate to €100 billion in total over the next three years, breaking records along the way.
That injection of capital would translate to an extra 53 gigawatts (GW) of wind power capacity being added by 2021, according to research from Brussels-based trade association WindEurope.
Europe currently has about 190GW of wind power installed.
Last year, a record €65 billion was raised for the building of wind farms, refinancing, project and company deals as well as money from public markets.
Investment in new onshore wind projects hit €16.4 billion in 2018, representing almost 40 per cent of all new power investments in Europe. Northern and western Europe accounted for 35 per cent of all new financial investment decisions last year, WindEurope said.
At the same time New figures by energy consultancy EnAppSys have shown that renewable energy sources generated 33 per cent of the total volume of Britain’s generated electricity over the first quarter of 2019, while clean energy technologies, including nuclear, accounted for nearly 50 per cent.
According to EnAppSys’ figures, a total of 27.2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of renewable electricity was generated over the first quarter of 2019 in Britain, as opposed to the United Kingdom, which includes the Republic of Ireland.
Of that 16.6TWh came from wind farms, in line with previous quarters, while solar generated 2.7TWh, up 43 per cent from the previous quarter and up 46 per cent from Q1 2018).
These figures from renewable generation compare favorably with the rest of Britain’s energy mix, where natural gas-fired power plants generated 32.2TWh, or 39.5 per cent of Britain’s total, while nuclear energy generated 13.1TWh, or 16 per cent.
The figures also highlight the continued decline of coal in Britain’s energy mix, which produced only 2.9TWh over the first quarter, down 37.2 per cent from the previous quarter and down 65 per cent from the same quarter a year earlier.
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