Spain aims for 100% renewables

Director of top Spanish energy company has predicted the country will eventually become 100 per cent reliant on renewable energy.

Acciona boss, Miguel Ezpeleta, has announced that there is currently enough wind energy to power 29 million Spanish homes every day.

In the past couple of years many wind energy milestones have been hit – providing 70 per cent of Spain’s electricity during a night in November 2015, and reaching a daytime record of 54 per cent of electricity use in January 2015.

He also stated his confidence in the growing Spanish renewable energy sector: "It's incredible. Some years ago people would say we would be crazy people saying these kinds of things, just dreaming but today it's a real situation.”

The European Union target for 2020 is for Spain to reach 20 per cent of all energy needs, including electricity, heating, cooling and transport using renewable energy.

It is currently at 17.4 per cent – and confident of growing its renewable sector to reach the target.

Spanish energy firm, Acciona, controls and monitors 9,500 wind turbines around the world on a minute-by-minute basis, allowing the company to determine if the blades are pitched perfectly or if maintenance is required.

These systems also allow the firm to predict and forecast what will happen in the sector.

In Spain currently, nuclear power accounts for 20.9 per cent of total energy, while natural gas and coal are both just above 15 per cent each.

There is no talk of closing down Spain's nuclear power stations, but they do want to decrease the amount spent importing fuel from elsewhere.

Acciona Director for the Asia-Pacific region, Javier Montes, said of the benefits of wind power: "The one thing going in Spain's favour is that the electrical system has been built with the goal of making it very reliable and able to take very heavy knocks with extreme weather events or major technical failures."