DAF-Indal[1] began working with Canada’s National Research Council and provincial utilities to develop Darrieus wind turbines using Canada’s abundant aluminum in the mid 1970s.[2]
They constructed about a dozen small prototype Darrieus turbines less than 5 meters in diameter and about 9 meters tall in the mid to late 1970s, rated variously from 4 kW to 12 kW.[3] One was installed in the Arctic for Canada’s Defence Research Establishment.[4] Another was installed in Texas at the USDA’s Bushland Experiment Station in a wind-assisted pumping test. Another was installed on Block Island, Rhode Island.[5] One was still standing—inoperative–outside Toronto in 2007.[6]
