As wind speeds surged during storms in February, renewable energy generated for Bristol Energy saw an increase of 269% from the previous year.
This meant the company saw renewables produce more power in that month than it had in the previous three Februarys of operations combined.
Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge battered the UK, sending wind speeds and generation up. During Storm Ciara, on Saturday 8 February, wind turbines generated 56% of the country’s electricity, for example. This was nearly 15GW of power, according to Drax Electric Insights.
Bristol Energy said that wind accounted for 56% of the generation throughout the month, a new record for the company. It did add that this was aided by a larger number of PPAs with wind companies than it had had in previous years, following the company’s launch of three green tariffs at the beginning of 2020.
Simon Proctor, head of renewables at Bristol Energy, said that although February had been a “miserable month” seeing more rainfall than any other in history, it was a “record breaking period”.
“The extreme weather meant that we saw a significant increase in renewable power generated through our PPAs across the UK, displacing fossil fuels and setting a new record for green energy generation.”
Of the power generated across the month, a large amount of the wind came from farms in the South West. Nearly 18% of was from turbines at a Bristol City Council-owned wind farm at Avonmouth, for example.
The local sourcing of power was part of the BE Simply Green, BE Super Green and Big Issue Super Green tariffs launched in January.
“We were pleased to launch three new green energy tariffs earlier this year, which are largely focussed on sourcing renewable energy directly from independent generators, encouraging local and national customers to choose green and do their bit for the planet,” explained Proctor.
“Bristol Energy continues to offer PPAs to projects of all sizes, technologies and levels of export; helping our customers know where their clean energy is coming from.”
The remaining generation came from a mixture of sources, including 6% from hydro and 5.9% from solar power.