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Portugal now gets almost 60% of its energy from renewable sources

Portugal switching to greener energy with more than 50 per cent from renewable sources http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-20/portugals-rise-in-renewable-energy-market/5906758 By Emily Stewart Portugal has a population of just 11 million people but it is punching above its weight in renewable energy industries.

Almost 60 per cent of its energy needs came from renewable sources last year, a 20 per cent increase from 2012.

Carlos Pimenta is considered the country’s renewable guru.  The former Portuguese and European Parliament member was a negotiator for the Kyoto protocol and with Al Gore a founder of the GLOBE organisation.

He said the energy market has changed dramatically since its liberalisation. “If you go back 10 years you have centralised gas, oil and electricity with big utilities on top and consumers on bottom paying the bill,” he said.”Nowadays you have thousands of families that produce part of their own electricity… hundreds of small wind farms, solar farms, small biomass that feed-in to the grid.”

Official Portuguese figures show the annual fossil fuel bill has been slashed by 800 million euros through the rise of renewables.

Former state energy company triples renewable energy output

Energias de Portugal (EDP) is the former state-owned energy utility and has coal, hydro and wind plants.

It has been transforming its business and has tripled its renewables in the past eight years up to 70 per cent of total energy.

EDP’s head of Innovation Antonio Vidigal said the company has invested 100 million euros into an offshore wind project, the first in open Atlantic waters.

“If you think of a normal common offshore project it is anchored to the bottom of the sea, it is typically to depths of 10 to 20 metres. Here we can go on any depths bigger than 50 metres,” he said.

It has already survived two major storms.

Mr Vidigal said the project will soon be commercialised.

“This type of technology has the advantage for Australia in not being aggressive,” he said.

“You have beautiful coastlines, coral, and you can put it in with very little impact.”

Government recovering from early mistakes in the renewable race

The move to renewables has been rapid and the country’s government acknowledges mistakes have been made.

Director General for Energy and Geology, Pedro Cabral, said the government was paying too much for several years.

The industry managed to survive the global financial crisis, despite the fact Portugal was brought to its knees and needed a 78 billion dollar bailout.

In fact, Mr Pimenta said it was one of the best performing industries during the crisis. “It helped the country generate exports of technology services,” he said.

“High quality services, mathematical models, grids, not only devices.

“The good thing, we produce the machines, we export the machines, the last five years thousands of industrial jobs have been created.”

Meanwhile, wind turbine producer Senvion Portugal remains bullish about exports.  Despite the slowdown and uncertainty in renewables in Australia, it still remains the company’s third largest customer behind Germany and France.

November 23, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, renewable