Sweden breaks wind power record by half a million kWh after intense weather and storms

A huge proportion of Sweden’s energy has come from wind power in recent days

Wind turbines at the island of Mariahamn between Sweden and Finland (Getty)

Sweden has generated more energy from wind power than it ever has before.

Nearly 5.7 million kWh of wind power was generated as the country harvested the effects of “Storm Urd” and intense weather across the south of the country. That smashed through the previous record, set almost exactly a year ago, beating it by more than half a million kWh.

“The extremely windy weather in the past few days meant that wind power produced almost as much as six nuclear power plants. Never before has Swedish wind power produced that much,” Anders Engqvist, head of risk management for Bixia, said in a statement provided to The Local.

Storm Urd hit the south of Sweden over Christmas, only abating in the last couple of days. It meant that some parts of the country experienced hurricane-force winds – which were then captured by the country’s large number of wind farms.

The huge amount of power being generated means that in the past three days wind energy has accounted for 26 per cent of the country’s total energy consumption.

As well as helping to reduce power generated through less clean ways, this also means that the price of energy is being pushed down. The cost of electricity has decreased by about a third for people in Sweden, and it has been reduced in nearby countries like Denmark and Sweden too.

In 2015, Sweden generated 16.6 terawatt hours (TWh) of wind-powered electricity, which made up about 12 per cent of its energy consumption. But even that is far lower than Germany, which generated 85.4 TWh in the same year.