A breath of fresh air for Barents wind power
The Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian Barents counties have set a new record in renewable energy. Patchwork Barents presents the current state of wind electricity production in the Barents Region.
The Barents Region reached a new wind power record in 2013, generating over 1,600 GWh, figures from Patchwork Barents show. Production growth for the whole region accounted to more than twenty-five percent.
Thirteen years earlier, wind energy presented a very different reality. In 2000, electricity generated by wind farms in the Barents Region made up less than 40 GWh. This means that, over the past thirteen years, wind power production has doubled itself nearly forty times.
The highest production of wind energy in 2013 was registered in Västerbotten County, with 541 GWh. One of the most powerful wind farms in the county is the Stor-Rotliden wind farm in Åsele municipality. The wind farm has forty turbines with an installed capacity of 78 MW.
Production was second highest in Finnish Lapland, with 303 GWh. The county with the biggest production growth was Northern Ostrobothnia (145 %).
Full blast in Sweden
There are good reasons to anticipate further growth in Barents wind energy, and largely thanks to Sweden. An ambitious energy policy is going to make Swedish wind power “a large and important renewable energy source besides hydropower and bioenergy”, the Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) writes.
The co-operation of Swedish Energy Intensive Industries informs that wind power currently accounts for six percent of Sweden’s total electricity production (2013). This is already 2.5 percent more than the share in 2010.
