wind park – WIND WORKS

Reflecting the concept’s newness are the many terms that arose to describe it: wind farms, wind parks, and wind power plants, to name a few. Early on, finding the best nomenclature created a dilemma. On the one hand, advocates wanted a term connoting wind’s technological success and its coming of age as a conventional source of electricity, conveyed by the term wind power plant. On the other hand, proponents also wanted to preserve the association with the enlightened land use–the stewardship–that the term wind farm implies.

In American and British English “park” connotes recreational enclaves or sylvan settings publicly protected from development. Arrays or clusters of multiple wind turbines are more correctly described as wind power plants. During the 1970s utilities in North America envisioned building “energy parks” of multiple nuclear reactors. Propagandists for the utilities deliberately chose the term “parks” to mislead public debate. Continued use of the term “wind park” by the wind industry may be construed as a similar attempt to deceive the public.