Wind Power Systems

Abstract

Wind has been utilized as a source of power for thousands of years for such tasks as propelling sailing ships, grinding grain, pumping water, and powering factory machinery. The world's first wind turbine used to generate electricity was built by a Dane, Poul la Cour, in 1891. It is especially interesting to note that La Cour used the electricity generated by his turbines to electrolyze water, producing hydrogen for gas lights in the local schoolhouse. In that regard we could say that he was 100 years ahead of his time since the vision that many have for the twenty-first century includes photovoltaic and wind power systems making hydrogen by electrolysis to generate electric power in fuel cells.In the United States the first wind-electric systems were built in the late 1890s; by the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of thousands of small-capacity, windelectric systems were in use in rural areas not yet served by the electricity grid. In 1941 one of the largest wind-powered systems ever built went into operation at Grandpa's Knob in Vermont. Designed to produce 1250 kW from a 175-ft-diameter, two-bladed prop, the unit had withstood winds as high as 115 miles per hour before it catastrophically failed in 1945 in a modest 25mph wind (one of its 8-ton blades broke loose and was hurled 750 feet away).