Portugal 1.0 Overview

1.0 Overview In 2009, the electricity consumption in Portugal was 49.9 TWh, which represents a reduction of 1.4% in demand, the first decrease since 1981. By the end of December 2009, Portugal had a renewable energy capacity of 9,093 MW, which represents 51% of the total installed capacity (1). The energy generation by the renewable power plants during this year corresponded to 33% of the generated electricity. The Portuguese wind sector has been growing steadily in the past decade, and in 2009 the country surpassed 3.5 GW of installed wind capacity. Moreover, the wind-generated electricity in Portugal represented 15% of the country’s electricity consumption, which is one of the highest wind penetrations in the world (Table 1). This was a record year not only in terms of yearly wind generation, but also in terms of the technical operation of a power system with a high amount of wind power. In 2009, the Portuguese power