At first, the trains in the Netherlands were planned to be run entirely on renewable energy by the year 2018. But, it looks like officials were able to to beat this goal by an entire year! As of January 1, 2017, all public transport trains in Netherlands are being powered by renewable energy–particularly, wind energy.
Source: Clean Technica
According to DutchNews.nl, currently there is a total of 2,200 wind turbines found across their country. These windmills are able to generate enough power to sustain around 2.4 million homes! The Dutch trains alone consume around 1.2 Billion kWh of electricity a year. That’s roughly the total power consumption of almost every home in Amsterdam, which is the country’s largest city.
This historical land of windmills is definitely leading the trend in the renewable energy development via wind energy. This goal was accomplished in partnership with Eneco, a Dutch sustainable energy supplier.
According to Michel Kerkhof, Eneco account manager, “What makes this contract and partnership unique is that a whole sector decreases its CO2 footprint enormously and sets an example for other sectors to follow.”
Here is a video, that highlights the development. We suggest you turn on the translation for this, unless you’re fluent in Dutch.
Source: YouTube, NS
PROGRESS AROUND THE GLOBE
As different nations are working towards increasing their renewable energy production, wind energy is taking over the Netherlands at a very fast pace. Last August 2016, Scotland has reported that their wind farms were able to produce 106 percent of the needs of the entire country. Scotland also has plans to go 100 percent zero-carbon by the year 2020. In addition to this, they are also investing in power generated by tidal energy to help achieve this goal.
In the United States, they are also putting in efforts to reach zero carbon, through wind power generation. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), there are more than 48,800 wind turbines that are operating in the United States. That gives a total installed wind capacity of 73,992 MW in the year 2015. That’s a lot compared to other countries that use wind power, but it’s just right for such a large nation.
We are now in the middle of a clean air revolution. There studies that suggest that even countries as large as the United States, could completely be powered by renewable energy by the year 2050.
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Futurism
