1978

Wind Power

Like sunlight, the wind seems like a potentially never-ending supply of energy, if it could be properly harnessed. Wind has powered sailing vessels since prehistoric times, and historical evidence for the first experimental windmills goes back a few thousand years, to the Roman Empire. Seventh-century Persian engineers developed the first widely used windmills for practical purposes, like pumping water or grinding (milling) grain.

The use of windmills for pumping and milling continued to grow over the centuries, and by the late nineteenth century the first windmills to generate electricity began to appear. At first these wind turbines were generating only small amounts of power (~5 to 25 kilowatts, enough for individual farms or small communities). In certain persistently windy places, however, the incentive of potentially abundant, sustainable, “low carbon” energy compelled governments, companies, and even communities to develop larger, higher-capacity wind turbines. A watershed milestone in the development of wind turbine technology came in 1978, when the first reliable multi-megawatt (2 megawatt capacity) wind turbine went online in the community of Tvind, along the windy North Sea coast of Denmark.

The upgraded Tvind turbine continues to generate power for the region today. Since the 1970s, however, increasing costs of fossil fuels (and predictions about their eventual depletion), concerns about the safety of nuclear power, and the slower-than-expected development of high-capacity solar power generation facilities have incentivized turbine companies to build larger and more efficient systems with even higher power capacity. Today’s largest wind turbines, for example, are up to 600 feet (180 meters) tall and can generate up to 8 megawatts of electricity, enough from a single windmill to potentially power thousands of homes.

According to British government studies, wind power, and specifically wind power generated from large multi-megawatt offshore wind farms (some anchored in shallow water, others floating in deep water), is now the lowest cost option for large-scale, low-carbon power. Globally, electricity generation from wind power now represents about 8 percent of the world’s total, but that number is expected to increase to 15 percent or more by 2040 as the costs (economic as well as environmental) of fossil fuels continue to increase.

A 2006 photo of part of a wind-turbine farm between the San Jacinto and San Bernardino mountains near Palm Springs, California. More than 4,000 turbines provide enough electricity to power Palm Springs and the nearby Coachella Valley.