News & Articles on History of Wind Power
This page was prompted by a technical question about early electricity-generating wind turbines in the United States. The question followed a similar question about “who was the first” to interconnect a wind turbine with an electricity network. There is a lot of confusion internationally about both subjects.
The history of wind energy is a broad subject and many have written about it. I’ve pulled together a list of sources, books, links, and museums that I know about. This list is far from comprehensive. If anyone wants to add to this list or edit this list, please do so.
A number of the entries below are reviews I’ve written of books that include the history of wind energy. The original book can usually be reached from the review. Other news items are relevant to the history of wind turbine development.
DAF-Indal: The Canadian Darrieus
By
Paul Gipe
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]
Updated–Smith-Putnam Stainless Steel Strap Found on Grandpa’s Knob Seeking a Home
By
Paul Gipe
No, not recently, not by a long shot. Paul Bergman found a piece of torn and twisted stainless steel on …
Failed Dream: the Bearingless Wind Turbine Rotor of the Late 1970s
By
Paul Gipe
On paper the composite bearingless rotor seemed too good to be true: a wind turbine rotor that enabled the blades to change pitch without bearings in the hub. And the wind turbine would passively use aerodynamic forces to orient the rotor downwind of the tower. It was the height of simplicity and would be cheap to build. What could go wrong? The short answer: everything. Eventually the nearly 400 wind turbines using the concept in California during the Great California Wind Rush of the early to mid 1980s were scraped off the face of the earth for scrap. And therein lays a sprawling tale.
UTRC, Windtech, Dynergy, & Composite Bearingless Rotor Timeline
By
Paul Gipe
For details on development of the Composite Bearingless Rotor and its derivatives see my accompanying article Failed Dream: the Bearingless …
NREL’s Wild West of Wind: a Glimpse of California’s Past
By
Paul Gipe
While interviewing Brian Smith about his early career during the Great California Wind Rush, he mentioned that NREL had done a retrospective on the history of the lab. Specifically, he suggested I take a look at the chapter titled the Wild West of Wind. Yee ha! Brian was right. He and Walt Musial have some great tales in that chapter. If you weren’t working in California’s wind industry then and you want a flavor of what it was like, take a look. The title is a pretty accurate summary of the times.
Photos of 1990s Windane Added to Site
By
Paul Gipe
While editing an article I stumbled across some photos of a Windane turbine on Pajeula Peak in the Tehachapi Pass. …
