Portugal manages to run 107 hours exclusively with renewables

In recent weeks we are witnessing significant milestones in the transition to clean energy. If recently we echoed that in Germany on May 8 renewable sources they generated such an amount of power that the utilities paid for it to be consumed, now it has been announced that Portugal ran on clean energy for more than four full days. The data, collected by the NGO Zero, show that the electricity consumption of the Portuguese country was fully covered, from 6:45 am on Saturday, May 7, to 5:45 pm on Wednesday, May 11, by solar, wind, hydraulics and biomass burning.

With this milestone, Portugal joins Denmark as a new European country that has achieved 100% renewable energy at times. According to statements by Oliver Joy, spokesman for Wind Europe, to The Guardian, “the Iberian Peninsula is a great source of renewables and wind energy, not only for the region, but for all of Europe”, so hopefully the example spreads on our side of the border. For milestones like the Portuguese one to become European day-to-day life, according to Joy, “an increase in the construction of interconnectors, a reformed electricity market, and political will” are essential.