Throughout the day yesterday I was glued to my phone reloading the “how much of Prince Edward Island’s electricity is coming from the wind?” gauge as the percentage grew from 0% the day before to almost — almost — 100% at 8:30 p.m. yesterday evening.
For that brief period last night there was 96.47% of the Island’s electricity needs being generated from the wind: 154 MW of the Island’s theoretical maximum of 173 MW of wind energy.
If I every had an doubts about the power of open energy data to motivate and change behaviours, I had only to look at myself yesterday, and the sense of provincial pride that would allow such a thing to happen (yes, I know that perhaps excitement-over-wind-energy-generation might not be a universal trait, but still…). My immediate reaction was thinking “we all need to run home and turn off the oven and the clothes dryer and get ourselves over the top!”
Wind is fleeting, so as I type we’re down to 35% (which, 10 years ago, would seemed like an impossible miracle in itself). But what a day.