In the fall of 1984 California photographer Thomas Braise filmed Fayette Manufacturing’s wind turbines in the Altamont Pass. Braise was a professional photographer hired by Fayette to photograph their machines. He produced stunning images of wind turbines in operation.[1]
Sometime in the 1990s, long after Fayette had gone by the wayside, four canisters of 16 mm film arrived at my office in Tehachapi. There was limited information on the canisters except a handwritten note that identified them as filmed by Tom Braise. For whatever reason, he had shipped them to me.
I’ve kept these films through various office relocations and downsizing and it was time to dump them. Because of their historical value, I had them digitized to mp4 format. I’ve been unable to locate Braise for more information. He may not even be alive now.
Below is a brief description of each film and background on Fayette Manufacturing and their wind turbines.
The “slate” on each film lists sound as “M.O.S.” or “mit out sound.” That is each film is silent. There’s no audio
One film was a copy.
Fayette Thomas Braise 19840901 Scene 1 AB Cine
The first film, 11 minute 46 seconds, is simply labeled “Scene 1” taken on 1 September 1984. It opens with a dawn or dusk view (it’s hard to tell which) of operating Fayette machines. There follows scenes of literally hundreds of Fayette machines in operation. It was an amazing sight in its day and it still is when viewed through Braise’s lens. There’s a close up of a Fayette in operation, it’s rotor filling the screen. This was characteristic of Braise’s work. There’s a following scene focused on one wind turbine turning slowly then fast then slowly again. I am not sure what is going on. Braise could have been playing with film speed. Then it shifts to a close up of a water-pumping windmill filling the screen. The camera then zooms out showing that the windmill is feeding an upturned barrel from a concrete truck as a cistern. The film closes with a night time pan showing nearly all the turbines idle except for two “motoring” or running as a motor off the site’s electricity.
Fayette Thomas Braise 19840904 AB Cine Scene 10 A
This film was identified as Scene 10A filmed 4 September 1984 by AB Cine in California’s Altamont Pass. The 6 minute 12 second film shows the method Fayette used to install its machines in the Altamont Pass. A front end loader carries a nacelle to the site, including panoramas of fields of wind turbines in the background. The film shifts to Fayette attempting to lift a rotor into place. For some reason they return it to the ground.
Fayette Thomas Braise 19840904 AB Cine Scene Sunset 2 Cable Feeding 360 View
This film was labeled Sunset Cable Feeding 360 View and also was filmed 4 September 1984 in California’s Altamont Pass. It is revealing of what it was like on the wind farms of the time. The nearly 11 minute film opens with a silhouette of a Fayette machine in operation then transitions to a sunrise with a Fayette machine spinning furiously. Subsequently, there’s a dizzying 360 degree scene showing the massive concentration of the Fayette machines at the site. Next is more construction work mostly noteworthy for the lack of worker safety. No helmets, no boots, no gloves even around a crane lifting and lowering tower sections. But it gets even better when the film shifts to pulling cable through underground conduit. This is pure manual labor and they’ve now ditched their shirts too.
Most of us survived that period. Some didn’t.
Fayette was noteworthy, some would say notorious, for its business and management practices. I’ve written critically of their machines and operations for decades. Though Braise’s films show sweeping scenes of hundreds of Fayette machines in operation, their poorly performing wind turbines were the bane of the California wind industry during the 1980s. Fortunately, all but one has since been removed and the area repowered with modern wind turbines.
Rotor Diameter & Swept Area
In my 1995 book, Wind Energy Comes of Age, I referred to the size of wind turbines by their rotor diameter, including the wind turbine’s generator size in kilowatts only as needed to differentiate various models of the same size turbines.[2]
Why I did so is explained in a long passage titled “Turbine Rating.” Here is an excerpt from the book explaining how wind turbines are “rated” in terms of generating capacity. Note especially the explanation of specific capacity.
“This rating designation ultimately leads to confusion. The Carter model 25, for example, uses a rotor 10 meters in diameter to drive a 25 kW generator, loading the rotor to 0.33 kW/m2 of swept area. The Fayette 95 IIS uses a rotor about the same size to drive a 95 kW generator for a specific capacity rating of 0.95 kW/m2, nearly three times that of the Carter turbine. An unsuspecting investor could easily be led to believe that the Fayette turbine is three times more productive than its competitor, the Carter 25, because of its higher rating. The peak outputs from the two turbines do differ markedly, because of differing rotor design and generator size. Generation also differs as well. But the Fayette turbine, when it is operating, generates much less than three times the energy of the Carter turbine, in spite of what would be indicated by its higher rating.”
I’ve written extensively about the misuse of wind turbine power ratings and why the term “capacity factor” should not be used.[3] There are much better descriptors of wind turbine performance.
Many of the outlandish claims made by “inventors” rely on the improper use of power ratings and capacity factors. It’s easy for unscrupulous promoters to hoodwink the public, the media, and even some engineers with the sleight of hand that “power ratings” and “capacity factors” makes possible. I explain all of this—and more–in Chapter 8, Silent Wind Revolution, of my book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us.[4]
There are two metrics that are superior to capacity factor in gauging the performance of wind turbines: specific capacity and specific yield.
Of course, Fayette wasn’t the only company using high power ratings to sell wind turbines. Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) manufacturers, such as FloWind, also overrated their products compared to conventional wind turbines. Suffice it to say that despite the high specific power of the Fayette wind turbines, they didn’t generate any more electricity than other wind turbines with comparable swept area and often much less. Because they didn’t generate any more electricity than other turbines of similar size, the Fayette wind turbines produced very low capacity factors, giving the industry a black eye that took decades to repair.
Fayette’s poorly performing wind turbines also produced low yields relative to, for example, US Windpower, and Danish machines, such as Bonus.
Fayette reached its peak in 1985 when it had nearly 1,500 wind turbines in the ground. From then on the number of turbines they operated steadily declined until 1995 when they only reported 500 turbines left standing. How many of those were still operating is unknown.
Yields of Fayette machines were always much lower than their competitors, such as US Windpower and Danish wind turbines. By 1990 Fayette’s fleet yield was only 200 kWh/m² compared to almost 800 kWh/m² for USW and nearly 900 kWh/m² for Bonus. That is US Windpower was generating four times more electricity relative to the area of the wind stream swept by Fayette machines. Bonus wind turbines delivered relatively more electricity than US Windpower’s turbines.
Placing a Very Bad Bet
One reason that Fayette turned in such poor performance in later years was the very poor bet made by John Eckland. As a former CIA operative, he felt he knew the energy market and energy resources worldwide. Eckland fully expected that energy prices were going to continue to rise dramatically in the years to come.
At the time, the utilities, under orders from the state’s Public Utility Commission, offered a series of standard contracts for the purchase of electricity from wind farms and other renewable sources. These “Standard Offer Contracts” determined how much the utility would pay for each kWh generated.
There were four “offers.” Under Standard Offer 1 the utility paid for each kWh based on the “short run” avoided costs. These varied over time with the rising and falling cost of the fuel used in the power plants of the day. In the early 1980s there were quite high and Eckland expected these to continue rising. Eckland placed his bet on this contract.
Of the four offers, most wind companies chose “Interim Standard Offer 4” (ISO4) which guaranteed fixed prices for a period of ten years and terms for 15-30 years. With fixed prices, wind companies and most importantly the banks and investors who were pouring money into California could more accurately estimate future revenues than through a constantly fluctuating payment. This contract and the concept behind it is what made wind energy ultimately successful. It became the model for Germany’s famed Stromeinspeisungsgesetz or the law on feeding electricity into the grid and the subsequent Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz or Renewable Energy Sources Act.
Unfortunately for Eckland and Fayette, oil prices crashed in the mid 1980s, crashing the price utilities would pay for generation under short run avoided costs. Fayette simply couldn’t earn enough from each kWh to keep their turbines running. The availability of Fayette’s turbines declined dramatically, leading to hundreds of dead and dying Fayette wind turbines on the Altamont landscape and ultimately Fayette’s demise.
Fayette Models
Fayette built a prototype turbine in Dubois, Pennsylvania. The company was acquired by John Eckland and then moved to California. The machine was in continuous development during the “wind rush” period from 1981-1985.
They started with the Fayette 75-IIS, a 75 kW machine using a 10.3 meter diameter rotor.[5] By 1984 they were using the 95-IIS which had a swept area of 95 m² and therefore a rotor diameter of 11 meters.[6]
Swept Area Matters Most
Disregarding the poor reliability of Fayette’s machines, they simply couldn’t generate competitive amounts of electricity because their rotors were so small and swept too little of the wind stream compared to their competition.
Fayette’s machines had very high specific power in W/m² and very low specific area m²/kW even for the period. This is just the opposite of what is required to generate competitive quantities of electricity from a wind turbine.
In the 1950s Ulrich Hütter, the famed German aerodynamicist, designed the first truly commercial wind turbine, the Algaier, with a 11 meter diameter rotor driving a 10 kW generator. This wind turbine swept 100 m², giving the machine a specific power of 100 W/m² and a specific area of 10 m²/kW, about ten times greater than that of the Fayette machines. The 10 kW Algaier machine would have run rings around Fayette’s 95 IIS under most conditions except extremely high winds.
- Fayette Manufacturing and John Eckland
- Photos of Fayette Wind Turbines
- Generator Ratings & Capacity Factors: Why You Should Avoid Them
- Wind Turbine Rating
- Specific Rated Capacity of Wind Turbines in the 1980s
[1] I know because as an erstwhile photographer of wind turbines myself, I tried to emulate his work.
[2] Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Comes of Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995).
[3] The term capacity factor is used primarily in North America. A similar term, plant factor, is used in Great Britain, and the related term, full-load hours, is used elsewhere in Europe.
[4] “Silent Wind Revolution,” in Wind Energy for the Rest of Us: A Comprehensive Guide to Wind Power and How to Use It, by Paul Gipe (Bakersfield, California: Wind-works.org, 2016), 191–202. https://wind-works.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Chapter-8-Silent-Wind-Revolution-Pages-191-202-from-Wind-Energy-Final-PagesLR.pdf.
[5] Erik Grove-Nielsen, “Winds of Change: American Turbine Makes 1975 – 1985,” accessed April 15, 2025, https://www.windsofchange.dk/WOC-usaturb.php.
[6] “Results from the Wind Project Performance Reporting System: 1985 Annual Report” (Sacramento, California: California Energy Commission, August 1986), https://web.archive.org/web/20150906082646/http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/documents/1985-1993_reports/WPRS_1985_P500-85-013.pdf.
