At one point in time, running an entire country entirely on renewable energy seemed like a pipe dream. No longer, though.
For almost a week in November 2023, the country of Portugal ran on 100% renewables. It was said that Portugal's energy landscape witnessed about 1102 Gigawatt hours (GWh) from renewable sources during this period. As a frame of reference, that could power thousands of sports stadiums hosting a really important cricket match. So, Portugal operated without the use of natural gas for about 130 consecutive hours, which just might signal a reduced dependency on fossil fuels. Portugal's renewable energy is said to be wind and solar power and there are said to be plans to explore hybrid plants that combine both wind and solar energy.
And Portugal's total energy consumption amounted to about 840 GWh, encompassing households and industries. So, there was surplus energy as well. During 95 of those 130 hours, where natural gas wasn't used, Portugal was said to have met its own energy needs, while, also, exporting excess clean energy to Spain. That might mean that Spain could be a renewable energy exporter.
