You may know that the UK is the windiest country in Europe, so we are well placed to harness the natural power of the wind but did you know that…
• There are currently 171 wind farms with an installed capacity of 2429 MW.
• That is enough green electricity to power 1.3 million homes, or all of the homes in Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Cardiff and Edinburgh.
• If all the wind farms in the planning system were approved an extra
5 million homes would run on green power.
• Of the 1972 wind turbines installed in the UK, 1823 are onshore and 149 are offshore.
• Wind farms in the UK offset the release of 5.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in a year, one of the major greenhouse gases.
• A typical modern turbine repays the CO
2 expended in its manufacture, transport and assembly within 6-8 months.
• A wind farm of 30 to 35 turbines creates 150 jobs during construction.
• Delabole was the first commercial wind farm in the UK. Built in 1991, it has 10 x 400kW turbines which still power around 2200 homes.
• In terms of wind capacity installed, UK ranks 6th in Europe. At 22,247MW Germany is in first place with 10 times UK installed capacity, and Spain in second place has 6 times UK capacity.
• A typical turbine in the UK will generate over 4.7 million units of electricity each year, that's enough to make 170 million cups of tea a year, to run a computer for 1620 years.
To learn more about wind power or to see a full list of statistics about the UK’s wind farms please visit the BWEA website
www.bwea.com/ukwed