For details on development of the Composite Bearingless Rotor and its derivatives see my accompanying article Failed Dream: the Bearingless Wind Turbine Rotor of the Late 1970s.
1975 P.A.M. Spierings and Kip Cheney develop concept for UTRC
1975 UTRC wins ERDA grant
1976 UTRC issues report to ERDA on Self-Regulating Composite Bearingless Wind Turbine
1976 UTRC files patent
1978 UTRC gains patent
1980 Destruction of two UTRC 8 kW prototypes in Wisconsin
1981 UTRC Designs 15 kW, 48-foot (14.6 m) diameter
Late 1981 Third generation UTRC 8 kW at Phillips 66 stripper well in the Texas Panhandle, coupler fails
1982 AEI, WTSU reinstalls UTRC 8 kW prototype, mainshaft fails; Windtech scales up prototype to 15 kW
1983 PS Enterprises installs scaled up 75 kW, 52-foot (15.8 m) diameter Windtech turbines in Tehachapi, California
1983 Dynergy installs copy of Windtech turbine
1984 Dynergy sets up assembly of Windshark turbines at Cabazon
1984 Art Gomez dies on Dynergy’s Cabazon site
1985 Two men seriously injured on Dynergy site
1986 BLM cancels Dynergy Cabazon land lease
1987 Dynergy investors take over operation of Windsharks; Riverside County revokes Maeva permit; Investors sue Dynergy for breach of contract
1988 Dynergy failed to report any production, Windtech capacity factor 1%
1990 Five Windtech turbines left on Arbutus operated only part of the year
1991 Last year of production from Windtech turbines
1994 Cheney contracts with NREL to “field test a dynamically scaled version” of a 400 kW rotor with pultruded blades
1995 No remaining Dynergy or Windtech turbines reported in California
1996 Testing begun on five-blade Windshark with air brakes at the Cabazon site
1996 Windshark generator shaft fails. After 24 hours in overspeed the rotor destroyed itself and further testing was canceled. 20 years since patent applied
1999 NREL issues ~100 page report
2000 Final paper published by NREL on the pultruded blade field test
