According to the Danish transmission systems operator,energinet.dk, which provides a minute-by-minute account of renewable power in Denmark, wind turbines were able to meet 116% of electricity demand on Thursday 9th of July to reach 140% by 3 am Friday. The extra energy was channeled by interconnectors that allowed 80% of this power to be shared equally between Germany and Norway, where it can be stored in hydropower systems for be used in the future. And the remaining fifth of excess power was taken by Sweden. The day was unusually windy which allowed wind farms to produce enough power for country’s needs as well as some to spare. According to Kees van der Leun, the chief commercial officer of the Ecofys energy consultancy said that “A surge in wind farm installations means Denmark could be producing half of its electricity from renewable sources well before a target date of 2020”. And he added that “starting with 0.5GW in new onshore wind farms due before the end of the decade, and 1.5GW from new offshore wind farms will also be built, more than doubling the present capacity. And we’re seeing a year-on-year 18% growth in wind electricity, so there really is a lot of momentum”. This situation compared to Lebanon, and according to World Bank enterprise survey, we have power outages that ranked 3rd among 136 countries in the world after Pakistan and Bangladesh. Not only that but the outage lasts 5.2 hours, which is ranked the 15th longest worldwide, and with a debt growing in the electricity sector to exceed 1 billion American dollars per year, we need to look further into limitations and causes why we don’t try this option. The owner of a private firm in the field of wind energy -preferring to conceal his identity- told “green area” that we are able to produce 12 % of Lebanon’s needs of electricity, but the tenders represented by us and other companies are still in the drawers of certain officials”. He added that “the corruption in the administration is the cause of this delay, and probably the influence of the owners of private generators, and other influential figures and their certain interests, are standing up against this important and vital project and many others, and we’ve seen an example of this what happened between EDZ: Electricité de Zahlé and the private motors owners”. And he pointed to “green area” that “Lebanon should have tackled this option and other feasible renewable energy options since five years, but with the present situation, representing a political as well as administrative and technical and environmental scandal, nothing could be accomplished”. From “green area” and with the present power plants and private generators and the pollution they evoke, we should consider the winner options, at the same time make sure these solution keeps our environment clean, and lowers our debts so we may benefit from our resources in the most sustainable way.
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