Renewables are having a great start to the year and continue to beat their own records, which is evidence of the progress of the green transition in Spain which, with more installed power capacity from green sources, is making greater and better use of sunlight and the power of the wind to produce electricity.
The weather conditions are smiling on the green transition in March, a month which has already registered new all-time highs for maximum production with renewable energy, more specifically, with solar and wind energy, which, in recent years, have been the technologies with the largest amount of newly installed GW in Spain.
After starting the year with the best January in history, green technologies managed to maintain in March the initial momentum. Thus, according to provisional data available at the time of this press release, in the first 21 days of March, wind and solar photovoltaic technologies have far exceeded their electricty production compared to the same period last year. For example, the sun has contributed to producing 95% more electricity than in the same period in 2021.
March has been a month full of records. Wind power, which to date has generated more than a quarter of the electricity in the peninsular generation mix in 2023, has also managed to beat its all-time high for instantaneous production, registering a total generation of 20,897 MW at 8:35 p.m. on 9 March, representing nearly 60% of the demand at that time. Also, a few minutes later, this technology reached another historic milestone: the hour with the highest electricity production with wind in the peninsular system, reaching 20,437 MWh between 9:00 and 10:00 pm.
Solar technology on the peninsula and its constant drive to improve its metrics
The sum of the two solar technologies, photovoltaic and thermal, is revolutionising electricity production metrics. During the first few days of March, the instantaneous generation of electricity has already been exceeded on three occasions, the last of which was recorded on Wednesday 15 March at 12:00 noon. At that time the peninsular electricity system recorded up to 15,341 MW of instantaneous generation, about 46% of the demand at that particular time on the mainland.
The highest share of solar energy generation of all time was also reached during this month, when on 19 March at 11:37 a.m., 64.5% of all demand at that time was covered by electricity generated using solar technology.