Great news - Britain's wind farms generated record levels of power on Monday, providing 5 per cent of all power supplied to the National Grid over the course of the day.
The Grid confirmed that 40.5GWh out of a total 809.5GWh was provided by wind farms over the 24-hour period, with wind output peaking at 1,860 megawatts at 8.30pm.
A National Grid spokesperson said that, including direct output from turbines not conected to the grid, "about 10 per cent of total electricity demand would have been met by wind power. It is a pretty big landmark for the industry."
At its peak, the wind industry was producing the same amount of electricity as three nuclear power stations. This is further evidence that the grid can deal with large-scale inputs from intermittent energy sources like wind farms.
But, before getting too excited, we should remember that wind power in Britain still lags way behind our EU neighbours such as Spain and Germany. On the 8 November last year Spanish turbines generated 53.7 per cent of the nation's daily energy supply - equivalent to the input of 11 nuclear reactors.
Britain is currently a world leader in offshore wind power, but the industry still needs serious government backing to turn plans for a huge expansion programme into reality. The comprehensive spending review in October and the Energy Bill expected in November will be real tests of the coalition's commitment to be the 'greenest government'.
